Trucking Association calls for better mandatory driver training in B.C.
Posted April 5, 2019 12:52 pm.
Last Updated April 5, 2019 12:53 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – We need to step up mandatory professional driver training requirements in our province. That’s the view of the BC Trucking Association, one day ahead of the anniversary of the Humboldt Broncos bus crash.
The association’s president says the group’s efforts to convince the province to overhaul its driver training requirements started before the tragedy.
“We met with [Attorney General David] Eby just over a year ago to alert him to this and other issues,” Dave Earle said. “We’ve had a series of meetings with senior individuals with ICBC who are responsible, ultimately, for this file and this direction. We’ve had meetings with the minister of transportation and universally, they are all in agreement that we need to move forward on this issue. There’s a lot of good will. But what we’re looking for us is good action.”
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Earle says other provinces are doing more.
“Ontario went to a mandatory entry level training program about two years ago, and just recently Alberta and Saskatchewan have also moved to a program that’s very similar.”
He points to the changes Ontario has made in particular, suggesting we can emulate that province if we make our own changes to truck driver training.
B.C. Attorney General Eby was unavailable for an interview, but his office released a statement:
“Currently, ICBC is working with the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure and the Ministry of Public Safety and Solicitor General to support the development of a new mandatory training program for entry level commercial (Class 1) vehicle drivers.”
