If all Mexican border inspections were as thorough as California's, maybe Congress and President Bush wouldn't be locked in a battle over letting Mexican trucks into the United States under the terms of the North American Free Trade Agreement.

That's the feeling you get from a Thursday article in the Los Angeles Times, which reports that the failure rate for Mexican trucks coming into Canada is only slightly higher than that for U.S. trucks - and much lower than other border states.
"The condition of the Mexican commercial trucks entering at the Mexico-California border is much better than those entering through all other border states," said a Department of Transportation inspector general's report released in May.
That's reportedly because Mexican truckers know unsafe trucks won't get past the sharp-eyed California inspectors. The Otay Mesa and Calexico crossings are the only ones, out of 27 on the U.S.-Mexico border, where truck inspectors are at work during all operating hours, according to the paper.
In addition, the California Highway Patrol holds seminars to teach Mexican trucking company owners and drivers what it takes to pass inspection.
"California stepped up much earlier and put inspectors at these border crossings," Barbara Cobble, a program director in the U.S. DOT's inspector general's office, told the paper.
The inspector general reports that the failure rate for Mexican trucks in California was 27% last year, compared with 24% for U.S. trucks nationwide. That compares to an overall failure rate for Mexican trucks of 37%; at one Texas crossing, half of inspected trucks were put out of service.
Funding for more border inspectors will be worked out during the conference committee between the House and Senate versions of the federal transportation spending bill, along with tough rules for allowing Mexican trucks to operate in the United States.