Fleet Safety Council joins call for tougher entry-level driver training standards

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TORONTO, Ont. — The Ontario Fleet Safety Council’s Toronto branch has thrown its support behind a call for improved entry-level driver training standards.

The Fleet Safety Council is comprised of driver trainers, safety directors and other professionals and is affiliated with the Infrastructure Health and Safety Association (IHSA).

In a letter, the Fleet Safety Council said: “The lack of a training standards has been a long-standing frustration of many of our members. Moreover, those of us in the industry are often questioned as to why that is the case. Obviously, there is no good answer.”

The Council joined the Ontario Trucking Association, Truck Training Schools Association of Ontario and numerous trucking industry insurers in calling for a heightened training standard. The Toronto Council also said it’d be calling upon its 10 sister chapters across Ontario to take similar action.

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  • As some who conducts road test I can clearly say this is a great idea for truck training here in Ontario. Professional drivers need real training with real set courses. Training classroom that are one the side of the road have to go. Fly by night training breeds bad drivers. Think about this when selecting a driving school. Anyone who dowse road tests can see right away how much training you really have by the way you act and drive. Get real training. Technics that could save your life

  • I sure hope so. Then maybe we can have “professional” drivers again that can drive down a highway on their side of the yellow line, and not down the centre of a highway because there is snow in the right hand lane on every passing lane.
    There has been a HUGE decline in driver ability since I started only 27 years ago. It is starting to scare me being on the road with some of these “drivers.”

  • i agree with you shawn but i’m also thinking why would anyone want to get into trucking these days, iam an owner operator and have been for 25 years now i want my son to get into the buisness he is 25 years old but he refuses to get into the truck, his take on trucking is like this , companies dispatchers, human resources , saftey & compliance people , driving schools, mto are the ones making all the red tape and all the money, he dosen’t want to sit in traffic while getting paid by the mile or having to work by the hour with no hope of getting overtime pay after 40 hours not to mention the fines a driver faces while on the road , i also think that safety has gotten out of hand and anymore red tape and i’ll be selling my trucks and folding up my buisness and start a driver training school

  • Its always been and always will be about the $ Benjamins $. Take a trip back in time when newbies would spend time behind the wheel next to a grouchy veteran who would alert you to your indiscretions before you get to them or as your executing them. We knew it had to be done this way to ensure their new career did not have to find its professionalism by trial and error. ITs considerably different now where we need to fill seats because the recycle rate of drivers has increased or that it gets necomers to this industry up an running in our ” just in time ” world. Passing a road test does not a professional make… That should be obvious to the movers and shakers in trucking. Some companies do pick up the cost/ gauntlet because they realize the ramifications of taking short-cuts at this serious a level. Unfair to themselves as well as to the newbie who has put the trust of their future in the system.
    I was that grouchy lead hand for more years than I care to remember and lucky to be typing this out when by all accounts, I should be pushing up wheat. A 7000 km route executed in by teams in 5 days with a different co-driver very week because they couldn’t handle the extremes of the schedule. My favorite question from them that would set me laughing like madman…” When are we going to stop to eat?” Some could handle it and become long time comrades for their resolve and dedication. I’m proud to say that the newbies that passed through this type of regiment, whether through me or another fellow employee, remains accident free to this day. Even a few weeks driving with a local or city hauler would be a marked improvement over the ” Trial and error” or “Hit and miss” methods that let newbies become disenchanted with their new career and cutting their loses for a warehouse or forklift job that pays just a little less… All be it, not much. Is it any wonder why we have a driver shortage and poorly trained drivers. We get the drivers we deserve for the lack of investment in people. The solutions are easy and shouldn’t be a mystery for nothing more than lip service.

  • Angelo, I too came through the “Good Old Days” school of trucking back then a lot of the drivers I met were running on “Bennie Whites” or “California Turnarounds”. One of my friends almost died from his use of them. I was lucky I guess because my early years in the trucking industry kept me close to home waiting for my kids to get old enough to leave on there own. I well remember my first cross border run when I was hired by a Mississauga company that is still in business, after keeping me hanging around their yard till late afternoon they sent me in a day cab to Calumet City IL with a load of sugar for 8a.m delivery no road test no cross border experience and this was Oct. 1985.When I asked where I was supposed to sleep the boss told me to “look behind the seat there should be a board there”. Another driver helped me with the paperwork (remember when we had to do all the border stuff ourselves?) and the load was del about 3 a.m. I drove for 3 weeks sleeping on that board but I learned a lot. Always carry food and water in the truck and learn as much as possible from reliable sources.
    I put in 25 years accident free driving into the U.S since then including NYC, a lot of them as an OTR coach. I worked for a good company that had a training program and they were not run as a team, the coach had to be sitting in the jump seat when the rookie was driving.
    There are still many good companies that offer this type of training.
    The one important thing I learned was there is a BIG difference between a “trucker” and a Professional Driver.
    Stay Safe

    Bev Plummer
    Professional Driver Ret

  • Any form of training that can help to prevent risks to individuals is and as always been, of utmost importance. Safety training is compulsory in many organisations and those that invoice driving vehicles are no exception. Updates to an individual’s training should be periodic too.