MONCTON, N.B. – The Atlantic Provinces Trucking Association (APTA) has named Brian Wayne Tibbits, of Jacksonville, N.B., as its 2000 Driver of the Year.

Tibbits received his award at a ceremony Oct. 27, held during the association’s 50th annual convention and meeting in Moncton. Tibbits has been a driver with Culberson Trucking, also of Jacksonville, for 14 years.

The organizers said he has logged more than one million accident-free kilometres in his 16-year career, and usually drives 48-foot dump and reefer trailers. He runs throughout New Brunswick and the U.S. eastern coast.

The APTA gave its Good Samaritan Award to Hanson Hutchings, who drives for Dartmouth, N.S.-based Clarke Road Transport, for his heroism at the scene of a car accident in Lethbridge, Nfld. on the night of Nov. 9, 1999.

Hutchings, who is from Newfoundland, came upon a burning car in which two teenage girls were trapped. The car had lost control and slammed into a telephone pole, then burst into flames.

He managed to bring the fire under control with a fire extinguisher, and then stayed with the trapped girls until emergency crews arrived. Although Hutchings saved the two girls from burning to death, one of the girls later died of her injuries.

The APTA also gave Keith Webster Phillips, 39, an employee of Fredericton, N.B.’s Sunbury Transport Ltd., its award for Dispatcher of the Year, and gave J. D. Salvatore its Safety to Motor Transportation Award. Salvatore received the award in recognition of his 19 years of providing insurance programs and risk-management services to Atlantic Canada’s trucking industry. Phillips was acknowledged for treating everyone he works “with the utmost of respect and consideration,” the association contends. n