OK, I took some editorial license on the line from the 1970s song by C.W. McCall about truckers bantering on their CB radios, but the spirit of the song applies to our ongoing dispute with Mexico over access to U.S. highways.

On Friday, the comment period will end in the Federal Register on a pilot program proposed by the Obama administration that would allow qualified Mexican trucks and their Mexican drivers to make long-haul deliveries within the United States. With the exception of a brief interlude from 2007 to 2009, the U.S. has banned Mexican trucks from serving destinations within the United States.

I explain why this is bad for our economy and our reputation as a nation in an op-ed this morning in the Washington Times and in my own comments filed with the Federal Register. As I wrote in the op-ed:

Despite the hundreds of complaints already posted in the Federal Register, the Mexican trucking issue has never been about safety. The proposed pilot program would require Mexican trucks entering the United States to meet all federal regulations on driver qualifications, truck safety, emissions, fuel taxes, immigration and insurance.

Experience from the previous pilot program in 2007-09 demonstrated that Mexican trucks and their drivers are fully capable of complying with all U.S. safety requirements.

An August 2009 report from the Department of Transportation’s Inspector General found that only 1.2 percent of Mexican drivers that were inspected were placed out of service for violations, compared with nearly 7 percent of U.S. drivers who were inspected. In February 2010, the Congressional Research Service reported that recent data provided by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration found that “Mexican trucks are as safe as U.S. trucks and that the drivers are generally safer than U.S. drivers.” What the Teamsters and their congressional allies really object to is that these trucks will be driven by Mexicans.

The Obama administration deserves credit for its effort to end this dispute in the face of pressure from its union base. The sooner we allow more freedom and competition in the cross-border trucking sector, the better.