Dear Editor,

I am your average owner/operator who is tired of hearing about building a new truck route to ease border problems. A new route is not the answer. Getting U.S. Customs to improve traffic flow is. If another truck route is built, all that will happen is traffic will come to a standstill for four or five hours at the point of crossing.

Anyone who crosses the border daily, such as I do, can tell you what is wrong with the system.

Before Sept. 11, U.S. Customs usually had only three or four inspection lanes open and there was rarely a backup. Now we have eight or more lanes open and there is always a delay.

The problem lies with customs not processing commercial traffic fast enough. So instead of trying to satisfy the public who really have no idea of what it is really like, let’s get to the root of the problem and get customs to start processing trucks, which pose no threat, more efficiently.

I spent US$50 to get a FAST card and went through a complete background check by U.S. and Canadian officials, but for what? After all this, you’d think we should have a quick solution to the problem.

So instead of wasting time and money on this new truck route, let’s work on keeping the truck drivers from going broke with all this waiting time by becoming more efficient.

People need to be better informed on what is going on out there. Everyone sees trucks backed up, and automatically think it’s the truck drivers’ fault that we are there.

Jamie Martinello