Hi Dan. I mostly agree with David Robson’s observations and opinions above. However, there is no mention of the one thing that is missing from almost all trucking companies, big or small. Hourly pay! Many of the violations listed can be partly linked to the way that drivers get paid! I have been driving since the fall of 1983 and doing pre-trip inspections every day since then, even before Canadian truck drivers were required to run log books. I have found that in order to do a thorough pre-trip inspection on a tractor-trailer, a driver would have to put their coveralls on and spend well over an hour to check ALL the things that are to be checked every day before driving the truck. At best, even if you spent an hour, you would just be quickly looking at each of the parts of the truck that are to be checked, not carefully inspecting/checking/measuring/testing every part that is supposed to be done. A mechanic would certainly spend more than an hour checking all those parts and would be paid approximately $30.00/hour to do it. The truck driver gets paid $0.00. Is there any wonder that drivers do not complete their pre-trip properly? If there IS a problem with the truck, say a leaky wheel seal, the mechanic will get paid about 4 hours at $30.00/hr = $120.00. The driver will get paid 4 hrs @ 0 mph = 0 miles X 30 cents/mile = $0.00. Now, the load is LATE! The driver, if he has done his pre-trip and waited to get the repairs done to the truck, has spent over 5 hours at work and has not earned one penny! The load is LATE! The driver will be under the gun to make up the four hours that the truck was getting the repairs done, so in order to provide customer service, and more likely to earn money to feed his family, he will speed, follow too close, change lanes improperly, and not have time to stop and get out and stand 26 feet away from the truck each time he wants to smoke! Now, the driver misses the unloading appointment and has to wait all night to unload. 5:01 pm – 8:01 am = 15 hours @ 0 mph X 30 cents/mile = $0.00. Every day could be the same, and after a week or so, the driver has spent most of his time earning $0.00, but still at work, away from home! In order to have some quality time with family, he takes his young son with him in the truck (unauthorized passenger on board CMV). After any amount of this horrible lifestyle, he will either lose his house or his family or both. Instead, some drivers quit and then the company hires ‘drivers’ without a CDL or with a disqualified CDL or with no medical certificate(“because there is a shortage of drivers”). These ‘drivers’ will not know the rules and will not have much experience, and the dispatchers will be able to push them to drive after 14 hours on-duty, drive more than 11 hrs, or drive more than the 60/70 hrs per week. If companies would just pay the driver for ALL of the time that they are doing anything for the trucking company and therefore can not be at home, there would be far less violations and way more drivers want to work for them!

You have posted an article that I have been bugging my company about, the lack of driver training. Very good and informative . I will take this in and show them and with luck they will see their way clear to follow the suggestions here. Thank You Dan and David for a well written article.

Since moving from the UK six years ago,I am constantly amazed at what trucking companies in Canada can get away with .
Paying drivers by the mile only encourages them break all rules in order to earn more money,especially when time is lost through delays.This is not legal in the UK .I know several drivers here in Canada and in fact they often tell me how they managed to change their log books in order to get the job done, or in fact to get home to see their families .
So it comes as little surprise when I hear on the local news here in Calgary, the percentage of tickets handed out when the DOT set up random inspections on trucks and drivers .
Trucks in the UK have to have a full inspection every 6 weeks by a qualified mechanic, its a major compliance of operating a trucking company .I cant help but think, this is partly done as drivers are paid by the hour.They do get paid for their daily vehicle checks,and therefore companies do not want to pay drivers more time than necessary to carry out this task and keep the faults found to a minimum .There are obvious benefits, improved safety for drivers and other road users , improved reliability and less down time for their fleets .Let alone customer service and time table compliance.
I cannot see anything improving here until pay by the mile is dropped , the sooner companies and the distribution industry as a whole see that the better , till then driver quality,safety standards and overall image of the trucking industry will continue to decline. Good luck recruiting !!!!!!!!!!!

Good comments Cliff! The way that companies treat their drivers (especially those with years and years of excellent work and no accidents) needs to change! Trucking companies are extremely guilty of treating drivers according to how well the driver does what he is told by the office, whether it is good or bad or in many cases, really stupid. Gone are the days where the office people ask the most experienced drivers for some input when making decisions! Why not let the people who have hauled your freight problem free for millions of miles have some input as to how could we do this better. Instead, the office people, who usually have limited experience or knowledge in actually what it takes to do a good job, assume that the poorest driver in the company sets the bar and all drivers get treated the same! Soon, the best drivers get tired of being treated the same as the worst piece of crap drivers and then they quit and that`s right, you are stuck with a bunch of crap and the good drivers will be working elsewhere! They will still be good drivers, they just won`t be working for you….they will be working for someone else…against you!

Hello G. Paul Langman! I thank you for your supporting comments above! I have also read some of your comments in other places and, likewise, I always agree with your statements. I would enjoy the chance to meet you also…I have been out here, trucking around since 1983 and back then, I listened a lot to the old timers who had been driving for many years and I was also taught to drive truck by guys like that. Since then and after about 3 million miles hauling several types of loads all over the continent, I have noticed that those “old hands” have all but disappeared! They have been mostly replaced by a constant revolving door of ‘drivers’ who just don’t seem to get it! There used to be a time when, if you stopped along the road for any reason, whether to tighten your straps or chains or wipe off your tail lights, another driver would stop to see if you were alright! It didn’t matter if he was hauling a D8 Cat on a jeep and lowbed, or a load of cattle, or a load of milk, or oil, or whatever, he would get out and walk over with a huge smile on his face and offer any assistance that you may or may not need! You seem to me to be like those guys, and different from what today’s “drivers” are like! I find that the “drivers” today are nearly opposite to those good ol’ boys who used to have the respect of nearly everyone. We all know how much respect people have for the truck drivers of more recent times! I would like for people to compare me to the guys who drove back in the 70’s and 80’s and were appreciated by those who depend so much on them. I don’t put a lot of miles on my 22 and 32 year old trucks anymore, but I still make a living, hauling mostly construction and farm equipment and some oilfield service equipment around east central Alberta and western Sk, exclusively charging by the hour, from my yard and back to my yard. Occasionally, I have hauled loads to Mb, BC and Mt and ND border…still hourly. I will continue to do it for now because I love to drive truck! However, at the rate that things are deteriorating in this industry, it may not last long….I hate all the unnecessary policies and procedures and rules and regulations, all supposedly in the name of SAFETY!??? IT IS LESS SAFE ON THE ROADS NOW THAN IT HAS EVER BEEN!!! The ONLY way to improve safety is to retain good, experienced drivers and get them involved in hiring and teaching newer drivers. Then, leave them alone so they can do what they do best….drive millions of miles, problem free. Now that would be what I call improving safety! Feel free to call me 780 842 0663 or e-mail : stephenlarge@live.ca if you are near this area and I would try to meet you!

I read allot of post here and i must say that it all boils down to is $$$$$$!! i used to have my old truck for 15yrs and i had better conditions back then compare working as a driver, back then when i ran my own truck,.before i would pick up a load i would call and ask when they needed if they wanted a day earlier. i would tell them to find someone else! end of story,. now its like you gotta get there cause the client is been waiting for it, ya but i been up since 8:00am and its 9:00pm and i tired and want to chill out,”B.S” we are under pay no IQ needed for that, i notice in the past 10yrs we are getting more immigrants that are driving trucks like a bat of hell! if there boss tells them to jump, they would ask “how high”? this folk’s is another never ending war story like the middle eastern war that would never end?, there is to much small company’s out there that want’s you to run harder and spend not more then 2days at home, so they can keep there costumer, they are giving away permits out like food samples like you find in the supper market! B.S.they should stop giving these permits out, Company out there are stabbing each other in the back for work,.. i worked quit a few Company that are run by (these) immigrants that they want you to run 750miles a day and they expect you to eat crap in the truck and take no showers WTF

I believe that the wages are a major factor in attracting drivers to the industry. In 1987, while working for Liquid Carbonic in Oakville Ont.,starting wage was 15 per hour,time and a half after 8,and double time after 10. Something is drastically wrong with this industry. I would not encourage anyone to get into trucking.

392.6 Scheduling run to necessitate speeding, This is the one that worries me as this means dispatch/Management is coercing drivers buy some sort of threat to make impossible schedules. Drivers will in the real world bend and break rules but this charge says the company is forcing me to do this.Management/dispatch should be charged problem would go away, I spend most of the ’80’s in the ton/mile sand and gravel trucking and we normally ran 3-6 tons (6-12,000 lbs) overloaded every trip. One day the MTO whent to the gravel pit and charged the scalemaster with the overload ticket. whithin one week the computer system at the pit was changed so that it was not possible print an oveloaded ticket. If shippers and or management was charged directly and had to pay for it rates and schedules will change. New drivers go to a reputable school for training and are taught the proper rules and regulations then on there first load are told to ignore all the rules and get the delivery done. Unless we train drivers to reality or run trucks to the rules we will never be out of a driver shortage. As it is a problem created by the industry until the industy decides to correct it, there will be no change. Change starts at the top not the bottom but for some reason in this industry we expect the drivers(bottom of pile) to make the changes and bear the costs of those changes BEFORE management will change.
On the above post we see all of the charges these companies are getting yet they are the same ones that want electronic logs, If they get electronic logs the driver will be the ones that pay the price while management figures out how to invoice for it. A good example is waiting time most companies tell drivers IF the shipper pays we will pay my question is how is it drivers problem he did the work and cannot even invoice for it. When the company becomes laible for the costs suddenly things change if we adopt a european style pay scale companies and shippers would solve the problems but in the present system the drivers pay.

I agree 100% Kevin.
If MTO/DOT, Safety departments and company owners demand the driver submit a legitimate, non-falsified log book with all the I’s dotted and T’s crossed as we are legally obligated I say let’s give them what they ask for.
To my fellow Truck Drivers who have talked about an industry strike, (Please Do Not STRIKE) just follow your Log Book. Ensure you document every minute of your day. Include everything such as; (circle check, loading/unloading times, border crossing, waiting times, and traffic.)
The Industry as a whole says we have a shortage of safe qualified driver’s. Truck Driver’s by following your logbook and the laws you will become a safe and Professional Driver. By doing so we will perpetuate the driver shortage issue, maybe then the industry will follow the demand for labour and wage determination, as dictated by Labour Economic theory.
Trucking Companies, dispatch, shippers, customers, and regulatory body’s treat and talk to Truck Driver’s as sub-human and pay us accordingly. The above mention people’s love to nickel and dime us, and consider our profession unskilled. It is it is so let’s play by their rules and logic.
Truck Driver’s follow your LOG BOOK. In doing so you will redefine the industries J.I.T business model and Bottle Neck there supply chain.
This will increase their: Marginal expense and decrease profits.
Their storage cost will go up. Their marginal cost per unit of good will go up. Their Labour cost will go up. Their accounts receivables will go up in turn increase their borrowing cost.
FOLLOW YOUR LOG BOOK. When the cost of goods go up/and there is a shortage of said goods the public will demand change. You are just following the law.

Silvester look back at Rob Smiths post.
He said.
Let’s face it,if these were good jobs there would be no need for Canadian carriers to recruit in the UK.
That from a UK driver.

Wake up Canada, BIG BROTHER has found out that the CASH COW (Trucking Industry) is there bread and butter, 105 speed limiters, now banning cb radios? whats next manual transmissions? rear view mirrors? 490.00 log book fines for not flagging the border, 2 490.00 violations for speed, although the truck was set at 105? it has got to stop, they cant fix the roads in toronto, but they have a crew of 100 men working on the PUTNAM SCALEHOUSE? and the wages are the same since 1989. this my friends sucks a** WAKE UP!!!

Hi Henry vr! I agree that new drivers need to start sometime, somewhere and can’t possibly know all the rules before they go out on the road and that some of the most ‘seasoned’ drivers will get caught once in a while, but honestly, I have been doing this since the fall of 1983(well before we had all the unnecessary ‘rules and regulations’) and I still, for the life of me, can’t figure out all the scenarios of the regulations! There are rules that contradict other rules and it is always open for each officer’s interpretation of those rules. Driving a truck, pulling a van trailer, for instance, is pretty straight forward, but try driving something like, say a tri-drive oilfield winch tractor, pulling a 16 wheel jeep, 24 wheel trailer and 8 wheel booster and have a mix of highway, gravel roads, oilfield roads and some off-road, on-site work, getting towed by a cat, some daytime stuff and a bunch of work in the middle of the night! When you try to fill out your paperwork, there is very little chance that you could enter all that information in a log book and have it all work out legal! You would be out of hours before you got back to the highway! Then, when you get stopped by a roadside officer/inspector, the officer hasn’t got a clue what it is that you are driving, how it is supposed to work, what is the intended purpose of the truck/trailer combination, or anything else about it, yet they will try to enforce ‘the rules’!?? Anyway, I think that there can never be a set of rules where one size fits all! As for paying $16/hr+ and can’t find qualified drivers….About 3 years back, I was in Peace River or Grande Prairie, Ab and Tim Horton’s was paying $16.00/hr and there are no log books, no lying dispatchers, no ignorant border agents, no arrogant forklift operators, and the only enforcement people you have to deal with are the ones who come in for donuts!!

great description..