The word of the day is “homologation”

Homologo is a fairly common word in Spanish, just meaning “a person with an equivalent position.” News articles quoting a Texas County Judge, for example, would say she is the “homologo” of a Presidente Municpal.

Less used in English is homologation. I think I’m one of the few people who had to use the word in my daily vocabulary. I was the technical writer on a project to develop cross-company telephone credit cards, and I actually had to give talks to engineers on the homologation issues involved.

All it meant was that if the phone card was going to be issued by British Telecom, but used in French telephones to make calls to Hong Kong, it had to meet the security and credit reporting standards (and telephone record-keeping rules) of all three jurisdictions. A bit complicated, but not a biggie.

Homologation exists in every industry. Mexican meatpackers, selling to the European Union, follow EU health codes in their plants. U.S. televisions are manufactured to meet Swedish or Canadian standards on radiation emissions. Simple — you take the highest engineering standard of wherever your product or service is being distributed and use it as your standard.

It’s a no-brainer and non-controvestional … except when the batshit crazy right-wingers talk about Mexico.

They (the batshit crazy right-wingers, BSCRW for short) are convinced that Mexican trucks crossing into the U.S. are part of some master plot to make us all eat tortillas — or put gravy on our french fries, since the Canadians are part of the secret plan, apparently.

In their quest to stop Mexican truckers from engaging in normal cabotage (Another word you learn having written technical papers. A simple example that we’ve seen for years involves bus travel. Mexican buses can pick up passengers in the U.S. for a Mexican destination, but can’t sell them a ticket between two destinations within the U.S. Likewise Greyhound can’t run local buses in Mexico), the BSCRWs have come up with every rationale they can to “stop Mexican trucks” (as a sign says in front of the motel down the street from me).

While my favorite so far remains the suggestion that Mexican truckers are going to run over kittens (or shoot them), the BSCRWs actually got some mileage out of their claim that Mexican trucks don’t meet U.S. safety standards (they do — most U.S. trucks are manufactured in Mexico, and they’re the same trucks on Mexican roads). For that matter, different States within the United States have different safety standards.

As we do in the United States, where there’s a need, there’s a business opportunity. The Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance originally set up to write common standards for several western states, came up with the homologation statandards for those states, and now has come up with standards that meet all three NAFTA country’s rules. No big deal.

The BSCRWs, in an “exclusive scoop” for the BSCRW’s house organ, Wingnut Daily, smells poutine (or is it salsa?). It seems that — for a fee — local mechanics who follow the standards can use the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance inspection sticker, and from Manitoba to Michoacan, state inspectors will know those “foreign” trucks meet their local standards. AHA… LOCAL MECHANICS DO THE INSPECTION. IT MUST BE A PLOT.

Uh… my car is inspected by BAM Automotive on Holland Street in beautiful downtown Alpine Texas, not the State of Texas. I thought BSCRWs were in favor of private enterprise taking on state functions. So, what the heck are they whining about?