Commercial Vehicles

Perhaps you saw news coverage of the out of control commercial truck collision on the Coquihalla Highway last Friday. Witness accounts from the scene speculated that the combination appeared to have lost it’s brakes and may not have stopped at the mandatory brake inspection pullout nearby. No doubt this will be either confirmed or disproved when the investigation of the incident is complete.

So yesterday around 5:00 pm, I'm heading from home to Vancouver to pick up some passengers at U.B.C. and drive them to Surrey.

Are the drivers of these masive trucks carring large and very heavy logs taught in their Commerical Vehicle Driving School how important it is ( or should be ) that they obey the road signs perticulary in Residental areas . Judging by what I see in my small community sometimes plagued  by these noisy vehicles I think not .

I'm one of those odd drivers who tries their best to drive at or below the posted speed limit. I include the word below here as sometimes there is a need to slow down to less than the posted speed limit for safety reasons. This often has consequences for me when I have to share the road with other drivers who do not subscribe to my philosophy on road safety. A good example of this is looking in my rear view mirror and finding the Volvo logo on the grille of a heavy transport truck following me closely enough that I could count the bugs stuck to it.

Translink Buses

We are asked to give buses a break but the problem is that when they are parked at the curb the drivers have their 4 way flashers on. Unfortunately these 4 way flashers use the same lights as the turn signals. If there is more than one bus in the line when the driver switches from 4 way to turn signal  there is no way to tell what you are seeing.

This video was produced by the Trucking Advisory Group of the BC Forest Safety Council. The introduction states "Log truck driver, Adrian Sunduk, shares his story of how a seat belt saved his life. Before attending an Anatomy of a Rollover session, he had never worn a seat belt off highway because he had always planned to jump out of the truck if ever he got into a situation … See what convinced him that he was wrong and how wearing a seat belt saved his life."

Question: I drive a mini bus for our seniors home. It has space or 6 ambulatory and 8 wheelchair passengers. Is there a requirement for us to have a written report of our Pre and Post trip inspections?

I first wrote about drivers whose behaviour in the "no zone" around heavy trucks left much to be desired back in 2004. Little seems to have changed since then as when I listen to the trucking radio channels the most common complaint involves drivers who jam themselves in front of a truck and then slow down.

Commercial Vehicle Safety and Enforcement (CVSE) is now hosting an on line training course for commercial carriers to assist with National Safety Code (NSC) compliance. The course consists of five modules: