Whats wrong with truckers?

[LBZ]

Governing would actually help traffic flow. Obviously a loaded truck can't maintain speed up and down grades especially those in the mountains but there's no need to struggle to pass the guy that you were stuck behind at 40 on a single lane hill or at 70 through some curves because now it's a four lane or down hill passing lane and he needs to compensate by cranking up to 110 km/h. He has now created a backup of traffic but limited all of them from getting past him. I see it all the time coming out of the curves around 3 valley gap stuck single file until Malakwa and then the drivers want to speed up to 110-120km/h so now you're doing 130+ to pass promptly and get back over so others have the chance.

I agree and I have driven trucks so I know what it’s like. My trucks were speed limited to 113 and we never tried to pass unless there was a few miles between us and the next vehicle coming from behind as a courtesy. The 10 min I might have saved between mandatory roadside checks and fuel I waisted and people I pissed off wasn’t worth it.

I get pissed every time I travel hwy 2 in Alberta and get behind some arsehole trying to pass another truck because he is doing 3km/h faster. Takes forever and backs up traffic on that busy busy hwy. Especially when I’m coming up in the fast lane and 200 yards or less away they make a lane change, throw rocks at you, etc.

Everything registered over 45 000 GVW should be speed limited to 90 in the mountains.

 

[Cdnfireman]

Changes I would like to see for the commercial trucking sector:

More training, not only required training to get your license, but ongoing training after you get your class one

Proven English speaking skills in are areas except Quebec east. No matter how hard you try you cant teach a newfie to speak english

Graduated licensing program. Restrictions on what you can do and cant do until you have a certain level of experience and proven skills

License endorsements. You should have an endorsement proving you know how to chain up your rig, an endorsement for mountain driving, an endorsement for winter driving.

Training and education for the general public so they understand why that truck may be going slow, or why that truck is running a hill

Better CVSE enforcement and presence. Everybody is always at their best behavior when the cops are out, so put more of them out in more areas.

Excellent points from someone in the industry that has the experience and knowledge to make fair comments. As operators of some big heavy machinery, the onus should be on the companies and operators of the heavy trucks. I think most good truckers would agree that the incompetent and untrained of every ethnicity should be taken off the road until they can prove their ability to safely travel the roads. There’s 15 families of the hockey team tragedy suffering the consequences of this.
In my mind, the one of the biggest contributing factors to road safety is the actual roads themselves. The road systems in Canada and particularly B.C. are abysmal. Not enough divided highways, passing lanes, turning lanes at intersections etc. Major roads should not go through the middle of towns or cities....build bypass routes. Also, more enforcement is needed on a$$hole drivers, of all sizes and shapes of vehicles. I’m on the QE2 a lot and the stuff I see is incredible.
The outrageous fuel taxes we all pay should be dedicated solely to improving and operating our road systems, not thrown into general revenues.

 

[skegpro]

harte to say it but its not just the "new immigrants" doing this. We see this regularly with grain carriers as well.

Hey if you put your mind to it on Monday,by Friday you be be piloting a land train across Canada.

 

[Bnorth]

True but I've also spent a great deal of time all over the western provinces top to bottom. Driven the golden revi hwy more then I could count. Seen so many wrecks and most of it caused by impatient drivers. Pine pass one time I pulled the same car out of the ditch twice and just drove past him the third time. Couldn't count how many 4x4 I've seen upside down on 43 between whitecourt and gp. Point is that people just think they are entitled to do whatever they want and if something goes wrong with that it must someone else's fault.

I'm not saying there aren't bad drivers up there. A lot of 4 wheelers are terrible and make stupid choices around both around trucks and all over the place. The northern interior does not have near the volume of 53' vans being piloted by unqualified drivers that are also impatient and inconsiderate to their surrounding drivers and frankly adding a lot of risk to being on the highway.

 

[Stompin Tom]

I'm not saying there aren't bad drivers up there. A lot of 4 wheelers are terrible and make stupid choices around both around trucks and all over the place. The northern interior does not have near the volume of 53' vans being piloted by unqualified drivers that are also impatient and inconsiderate to their surrounding drivers and frankly adding a lot of risk to being on the highway.

That is true, but so far the majority of this thread has been aimed at "what is wrong with truckers". Maybe title it "What is wrong with Highway van truck drivers". Throw darts at the target, dont throw darts at the entire industry.

 

[Bnorth]

That is true, but so far the majority of this thread has been aimed at "what is wrong with truckers". Maybe title it "What is wrong with Highway van truck drivers". Throw darts at the target, dont throw darts at the entire industry.

It is an industry problem though. Log truckers are about the only group of drivers left that are consistently high quality and skilled professionals but even that is starting to deteriorate as you would know better than me.

 

[Stompin Tom]

It is an industry problem though. Log truckers are about the only group of drivers left that are consistently high quality and skilled professionals but even that is starting to deteriorate as you would know better than me.

Yes that is true. As the industry gets thinner for quality drivers, more of the "lesser" drivers move towards the money. There are more than our fair share of culls in the logging industry.

 

[Stompin Tom]

Everything registered over 45 000 GVW should be speed limited to 90 in the mountains.

Sounds great, lets get the chain up lanes longer than the passing lanes because if you govern trucks to 90 kmh in the mountains your going to have some very long delays due to spin outs on hills in the winter.

 

[Mike270412]

I think we should just ban all trucks altogether.

 

[skegpro]

I think we should just ban all trucks altogether.

No new pipelines.
No new trucks.
Makes sense.

 

[Mike270412]

Ride horses, Eat potatoes.

No new pipelines.
No new trucks.
Makes sense.

 

[skegpro]

Ride horses, Eat potatoes.

Live off the government.

Err wait.

 

[Ronaha]

You have any idea how hard it is to use a piss jug bouncing down the road? Pffft!! Talent right there!

 

[imdoo'n]

I think we should just ban all trucks altogether.

you talkin f one fitties???

 

[wheels]

I've been driving for 25+ years. Some days I wouldn't change it for the world other days I think I should have done something different. The trucking industry is its own worst enemy. No one will stand together to get rates up or boycott a company because they put unsafe demands on truckers. The freight companies know this and have the attitude if he won't do it there's another guy that will. The costs to run up and down the road are rising every day just look at the price of fuel. In the grand scheme of things the freight is a small percentage of the cost to getting products from production to consumer.
I don't believe in more government regulations we need some inter industry regulations from some good knowledgeable people who know the industry not some tools from the government.
As said many times in this thread speed, lack of experience, patience and distraction are the major causes of accidents. Listen to the news. Fatality accidents are happening every day and have since the invention of the automobile and will continue to. I've made an honest living driving truck and have no plans to change in the near future.
Just my thoughts and opinions.

 

[Stompin Tom]

I've been driving for 25+ years. Some days I wouldn't change it for the world other days I think I should have done something different. The trucking industry is its own worst enemy. No one will stand together to get rates up or boycott a company because they put unsafe demands on truckers. The freight companies know this and have the attitude if he won't do it there's another guy that will. The costs to run up and down the road are rising every day just look at the price of fuel. In the grand scheme of things the freight is a small percentage of the cost to getting products from production to consumer.
I don't believe in more government regulations we need some inter industry regulations from some good knowledgeable people who know the industry not some tools from the government.
As said many times in this thread speed, lack of experience, patience and distraction are the major causes of accidents. Listen to the news. Fatality accidents are happening every day and have since the invention of the automobile and will continue to. I've made an honest living driving truck and have no plans to change in the near future.
Just my thoughts and opinions.

One thing that is becoming more prominent in the forest industry is the advent of road marshalls. This a person designated by the mill in control of the road to uphold safety standards. There are some inherent problems, but in general it is a good starting point.

Back in the old day the "road marshall" was determined by who was the tuffest guy at the landing, matters were settled, feeling hurt and problem drivers found new jobs.

 

[Stompin Tom]

I've been driving for 25+ years. Some days I wouldn't change it for the world other days I think I should have done something different. The trucking industry is its own worst enemy. No one will stand together to get rates up or boycott a company because they put unsafe demands on truckers. The freight companies know this and have the attitude if he won't do it there's another guy that will. The costs to run up and down the road are rising every day just look at the price of fuel. In the grand scheme of things the freight is a small percentage of the cost to getting products from production to consumer.
I don't believe in more government regulations we need some inter industry regulations from some good knowledgeable people who know the industry not some tools from the government.
As said many times in this thread speed, lack of experience, patience and distraction are the major causes of accidents. Listen to the news. Fatality accidents are happening every day and have since the invention of the automobile and will continue to. I've made an honest living driving truck and have no plans to change in the near future.
Just my thoughts and opinions.

You basically completed your argument. As you said the industry cant work with itself, to many individuals and not enough teams. Because of this inability they only other answer is more control and regulation. We are slowly working into mandatory electronic log books, but they will find away around that. A couple of local firms have gone to in truck GPS where they track all your movement, your speed, your time stopped and all actions on the road. Problems with that as well, but atleast if your in an accident you have proof of your driving habits, good or bad.

 

[Lund]

Geographics my friend, geographics. It is much cheaper and easier to engineer a road in the flat lands than in the mountains. Maybe we should install toll boths at all highways entering BC to help pay for those upgrades to out 40 year behind the times road system? Believe me BC'ers are paying their fair share to use those highways, are the outsiders contributing enough?

population of BC 4,800,000. Land mass 944,735 square km's

population of Germany 82,200,000. Land mass 357,021 square km's

I think your misunderstanding, i was stationed in Germany and never meant trucking in Germany. I meant trucking in Europe as a whole, there are no international border's in the EU for transport unless it is not an EU member's transport, but once it has crossed into the EU it can travel anywhere through out Europe.
BTW its a very large continent with lots of huge mountain's, bigger then our's.

One way to make trucker's more accountable is to have a call number posted on the back of the trailer with unit number.
The sign could say in big bold letter's;
"HOW'S MY DRIVING"
1-800-xxx-xxxx
A driver gets too many complaint's from random driver's on his rout, i'm sure he won't have his job too long.
I have seen some trucking out fit do that, DC Chamber's is one that comes to mind.
Napa and Lordco part's delivery vehicles also display such a sign, so does UPS i think.
Like they say, it's pretty hard to hide when your driving a billboard, let the public monitor the asswhipes. It would smarten some up pretty fast if their job suddenly was on the line.

 

[pano-dude]

Sounds great, lets get the chain up lanes longer than the passing lanes because if you govern trucks to 90 kmh in the mountains your going to have some very long delays due to spin outs on hills in the winter.

If you need to do more than 90 to make the hills is it really safe to be doing so?

When I was in Europe all trucks travelled at 90, I saw 15 trucks all nose to tail one day.

There are horrible drivers in all kinds of vehicles, truckers are getting paid so imo they should have a higher level of training.

Could be an a new trade and need to spend 2 years with a Journeyman before getting a licence.

 

[freeflorider]

I think your misunderstanding, i was stationed in Germany and never meant trucking in Germany. I meant trucking in Europe as a whole, there are no international border's in the EU for transport unless it is not an EU member's transport, but once it has crossed into the EU it can travel anywhere through out Europe.
BTW its a very large continent with lots of huge mountain's, bigger then our's.

One way to make trucker's more accountable is to have a call number posted on the back of the trailer with unit number.
The sign could say in big bold letter's;
"HOW'S MY DRIVING"
1-800-xxx-xxxx
A driver gets too many complaint's from random driver's on his rout, i'm sure he won't have his job too long.
I have seen some trucking out fit do that, DC Chamber's is one that comes to mind.
Napa and Lordco part's delivery vehicles also display such a sign, so does UPS i think.
Like they say, it's pretty hard to hide when your driving a billboard, let the public monitor the asswhipes. It would smarten some up pretty fast if their job suddenly was on the line.

I see a problem with that though. We work with a large trucking company that has this in place. Sadly now you have impatient drivers that judge the truck for how it’s driving by someone I wouldn’t hire to push my lawnmower.
what I’m saying is the public needs to have an understanding on how a truck works and reacts before they call in and judge.
Im not saying dangerous driving shouldn’t be reported but it could result in unnecessary calls to the company.

I have read through the comments and all yah make some good arguments . I just want to point out we need trucks just as we need pipelines, the world doesnt just run on dunkin donuts.
we all need to relaxe when we are on the road, you can’t fix stupid and sadly there out there. As far as setting speed limits and such, I like driving fast, there I said it. I also have days I’m the slow poke and I realize it.
Im in tune with my surroundings and when I drive fast I pass when it’s safe and pull over and allow people to pass when I’m slow. The thing is we all need to share the roads as everyone need to get somewhere.
If we all give adjust our driving habits and allow people to pass or have the opertunity to pass and keep the flow going the roads won’t seem so bad.
people that think they own the road and don’t adjust for other traffic suck. Not sure where we can go from here. The roads a becoming very busy and infrastructure will help. But a little give in take goes a long way.