Dear Editor:
When I read L. Luyten's letter, Trucks are a safety hazard, in the April 18 edition of The Record, I was quite upset and disturbed. I'm a professional truck driver and a citizen and taxpayer of the City of New Westminster. I'm a second-generation truck driver, with just over 11 years experience in the industry.
Any time there is a fatality as the result of a motor vehicle accident, whether or not it involves a commercial vehicle, it's a tragedy. But Luyten seems to infer that all accidents involving trucks are automatically the truck driver's fault. That is simply not the case. There are a number of times where people in cars have caused accidents with trucks. Over the years many truck drivers have lost their lives as the result of bad decisions made by people driving cars.
Luyten goes on to state that he "would estimate that out of 10 vehicles, seven are not road safe." I'm interested on where he comes up with this number? I personally disagree with it entirely. I believe that the number is below 10 per cent. But then again, I myself could be wrong. Because, for whatever reason, the government has chosen to not be directly involved in the issue of truck safety when it comes to safety inspections. Most commercial vehicles have to be inspected at least once a year or, depending on what maintenance program you are on, twice a year. The inspection guidelines are set by the Ministry of Transportation, but the inspections themselves are carried out by the private sector.
The provincial Liberal government showed how high a priority they place on vehicle safety in the Lower Mainland when they closed the Pattullo scale and knocked down the only enclosed full inspection station in the region.
The trucking industry does have its problems. A lot of them, in my opinion, can be directly attributed to when the industry was deregulated back in the midto late 1980s.
I choose to drive like a professional. Perhaps its because I'm an hourly paid company driver, and a proud Teamster. And there are a lot of people like me, Teamsters and non-Teamsters alike. I would love it if every truck driver was paid by the hour, received good pay and didn't have to make the choice in a lot of cases of whether to maintain their equipment or feed their families and pay their bills. There are some drivers in that exact position, and some companies who choose to shirk responsibility for properly maintaining their equipment all in the name of staying profitable or making more money.
Those companies should be dealt with. But until the government of the day steps up and chooses to deal with the industry and problems within the industry, there will always be those who try to take the shortcut on maintenance and safety. Until the systemic problems of the trucking industry are acknowledged and addressed, there will always be those who choose to not act professionally. I, for one, choose not to be one of those types. And I do not appreciate people like L. Luyten and others somehow portraying things like it's all truck drivers.
Dave Lundy, New Westminster
