COQUIHALLA 30 VEHICLE ACCIDENT

As much as people like to blame "new Canadians", and I'm not excusing them here either, they are fully responsible for their actions... but these immigrants are being dealt a pretty #### hand. They come here, with little in the way of language skills (I've only met a handful that speak English fluently) and have two choices for jobs. Food service and driving (not just trucks).

Now, here in Manitoba, immigrants can be fast-tracked into Manitoba Public Insurance's professional driver training program. They can pretty much get their Class 5 license as soon as they can get here, and with a minimal set of skills and some cash, they can land a Class 1 (AZ for the Ontario drivers) in a few months.

There is no regulation on the training end of the industry. Whether a week or six of experience, so long as you can pass the test, they don't care. And that's the problem. These people aren't being given training to properly undertake something like a mountain grade. I was. Both with my training school and my company.

But some "schools" here (essentially a truck with a back seat) are not giving these drivers the skills they need to survive out on the open road, and just giving them a "job" rather than a career (and in a lot of situations, it's people in their own community swindling them out of money).

I've met plenty of very nice, and incredibly hard-working Punjabi and Eastern European immigrants not only out on the road, but just in life in general, and I refuse to paint them all with the same brush. Just like us, we have our hard workers, and our lazy workers. The lazy ones tend not to last very long in the industry, and either leave it in a pine box, or loaded down with fines/jail time.

All I'm saying is that we are professionals, no? So we should treat our fellow drivers with some respect, regardless of their ethnic heritage. We never know where they are coming from or why they find themselves in that situation. We can't blame an entire group of people for the poor decisions of a few. Everyone is responsible for their own individual actions and the consequences therein, not their friend, not their brother, nor their neighbour.

 

@Zeviander I do agree that training standards need to be stepped up. I've held my class 1 for over 4 years now and honestly, Alberta doesn't even require training. The lady at Registries basically told me when I went in to do my written test that I could have brought a truck down and tested that day. I took a 40 hours in truck course through a college anyways and I feel that gave me just enough confidence to know I could pass the test. I never hooked onto more than an empty oilfield float the entire time in driver training either. There is definitely room for improvement there.

 

A large part of the issue is the fly-by-night training "schools". Unlike other trades, trucking doesn't require certification for the school to teach the students. All you need is a license, a training certificate (which requires familiarity with the Highway Traffic Act) and a truck.

The training school I attended has been part of a campaign in Manitoba at least, to get that changed. They want to see trucking be considered a skilled trade and require at least 240 hours of in-school training before you can even qualify for a license.

And even then, after that 240 hours, there are still plenty of people that aren't fit to be drivers. Hell, I've seen them come through my company. It's a shame too, because they tend to be very hard-working, they just don't understand trucking.

 

I was lucky in regards to the fact that I had grown up around trucks and had driven them around yards prior to taking my test. I think that gave me a large advantage over a lot of people. IMO a truck, loaded or bobtail, is a dangerous machine and standards need to be there to ensure qualified people are behind the wheel. I mean hell I had to spend 6000 hours on the job as a mechanic and almost 3000 hours in school before I could even go and write my Red Seal exams.

 

A friend of mine is a couple (I think?) steps away from being a Red Seal plumber. He's been doing the work and schooling now for almost 5 years. I have been driving since March 2015 and got trained starting in January 2015. And yet, I'm the one operating the machine that can kill dozens of people at the drop of a hat.

 

Although government policies that encourage the employment of a flood of dangerous drivers in the trucking industry are a grave situation I think it may be considered to be inflammatory to refer to people as insects. I prefer to use more neutral terminology to describe the problematic truck drivers, like Clueless Unqualified Inexperienced Dangerous and Aggressive Men in Trucking Who Kill and Injure Innocent People and Destroy Property for no Other Purpose than to Lower the Pay of Canadian Truck Drivers to Fast Food Wages (CUIDAMTWKIIPDPOPLPCTDFFW).

 

i saw this on you tube. Wow! How? Why? Oh boy!

 

Runaway!? So no breaks