By Juan Montoya
Around mid-June, an accident involving trucks being sent into Latin America by local transmigrantes resulted in the death of a Guatemalan man who was crushed when a semi-trailer cab slipped off its moorings and killed him.
Authorities identified him as 43-year-old William Francisco Samayoa Vasquez from Guatemala. The fatality was ruled an accident and no charges being filed against the company where the trucks were parked for further transfer.
Just today, several transmigrantes were adjusting the tie downs on a similar transport carrying semi-trailers (top photo). They were parked on the frontage road in Brownsville off southbound 3th Street.Apparently, some of the tie downs had became loose due to the vibrations of the road and they said they were tightening them. It is not difficult to see that an accident like the one that happened last June could easily happen again. At the time of the June accident, a commenter said that the potential for accidents of these transmigrantes (and possibly the general public on the road) was heightened by the lack of controls by local and state law transportation enforcement agencies.
"Just like it happened on the transmigrantes yard, it can happen on the interstate especially when nothing is done when they are pulling up to 3 junked cars on the highway, half asleep from driving all night," the commenter said. "There ought to be more controls over all these potential accidents and deaths."
The June accident happened at Transmigrantes Vida Nueva, 30471 Rangerville Road in San Benito, according to the Cameron County Sheriff's Dept. That business is owed by Florentino Piñon who at the time was unavailable for comment on how the man came to be trapped under the semi truck.
5 comments:
It is completely legal the way that Flat bed trailer is loaded, as long as the load is safely tied down as per DPS requirements, they just become a pest in the road for how slow they drive.
The DA needs to investigate that business Transmigrantes Vida Nueva
As commented by the first Anonymous writer, this is true it is legal to drive stacked this way. but if you start to check their insurances and drivers licenses then you"ll find some interesting inconsistencies. This problem has been around a long time, but as you know the city of Harlingen and San Benito as well as Los Indios condone and encourage this since it leaves the local economy with some type of monetary gain, not much, but enough to keep this business going. As for no response to your calls, most of the agencies are run from Mexico and hire illegal immigrants to run their offices in the Los Indios area. So no answer will be a given if you start to investigate them. The local media stays away from that story only because its complicated and nobody seems to care anyway. Go out there and start asking questions and see what happens. NOTHING!
They bribe their way out of trouble.
Funny when you see a Volkswagen pulling 5 wrecked cars down the highway. Is there no limit to how many cars one can pull safely and for what distance.
It is not only the transmigrantes but people who now sell cars from their homes because the police department says there is nothing wrong with doing that.
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