If you make a living in these lean times as a commercial driver on Cameron County highways, you might want to seek shelter at home. It looks like the Texas Department of Public Safety is out in force training its rookies on the art of issuing tickets.
Local truckers and even Mexican drivers who come to the Port of Brownsville through the Veteran Memorial Bridge at Los Tomates are painfully aware that the DPS trains its troopers there and once they stop you it seems that they are under an obligation to cite them for all and any infraction they can find or even anticipated ones (a warning).
When former Cameron County Judge Carlos Cascos was on the Public Safety board of directors, he complained long and loud to the commander of the DPS that the DPS training unit was driving (no pun intended) truck traffic to the bridge at Pharr to avoid the overzealous rookies trying to impress the boss at Los Tomates. All that was to no avail and the training unit continues to harass Matamoros-Port of Brownsville truck traffic, pay huge fines, and place their commercial licences in danger.
In the stretch between San Benito and Brownsville (El Valle del Zorrillo), one DPS team is stationed on the northbound lanes and another on the southbound, and pull all trucks to make their inspections. The employees of truckers, who have seen their income wither because of the impact of COVID-19 on the economy, will now have to shell out scant profits to the state and try to help the drivers keep their license for the sake of their livelihoods and for the training of DPS rookies.