Commercial Vehicles

every week or so, I haul a load of dead fish to another town, in a 53 foot tanker. This trailer is loaded by the fish producers, then it is sealed, brought out to the highway, where I pick it up and begin my 3 hour trip to deliver.

I don't know if you drive much along Hammond Bay Rd, but it can be pretty frustrating on garbage day, or even morning commute on school days, with buses stopping very 100 - 200 yds.

I dread the new "automatic" garbage trucks which I think will take far longer to pick up cans and put them down using hydraulics, rather than arm power.

Harvey Truax stopped his empty B train combination on the shoulder of Highway 1 near Sorrento, B.C. He allowed the 4 vehicles that had been following him to pass by before he started to make a left turn across the highway into a pullout. His left signal was in operation and he had 300 to 400 m. of highway visible behind him. Finding no overtaking traffic, he began to move from the shoulder into the pullout across the highway.

While out for a walk the other afternoon I approached a driver who had stopped in his lane, in a corner, to talk to a couple of pedestrians on the other side of the road. Normally, this is a relatively quiet street but the driver is still making a poor choice. His action was unsafe due to poor sight lines for approaching drivers.

I have a one ton truck, commercial, increased GVW (14,000 I believe), under NSC number, licenced for farm use. With this vehicle I do the following: 

Just pickup, running for parts errands etc

Pickup and commercially plated trailer to haul water

Pickup and commercially plated trailer to haul hay, farm supplies, cattle, farm equipment

Pickup to haul horse trailer with horses/tack

The Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure has announced the implementation of Pilot Car Load Movement Guidelines to regulate the safe movement of oversize vehicles on B.C.'s highways. Part of the Traffic Management Manual for Work on Highways, it also describes new temporary signs with a fluorescent pink background to warn of an emergency situation. In this case an example might be an overwidth load stopped so that it obstructed a lane of travel. It would be up to the pilot car operator to place the sign appropriately to warn approaching traffic.

The Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure has released it's final report on the safety of motor coach transportation in the province.

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 .