Dear Editor,

Regarding your story: Licence Mills Threaten Future of Trucking (Truck News, January 2001, p. 6).

As an owner/instructor of a truck driver training school in Kamloops, B.C., I found John G. Smith’s article “Licence Mills Threaten Future of Trucking” to be excellent.

To quote John, “This all comes down to a fight by legitimate training institutions and programs that want to rid the province of so-called “licensing mills” – the programs that train students to pass tests, but offer them few of the many other skills needed in a career behind the wheel.”

The legitimate driving schools are painted with the same brush as the licensing mills. It makes it extremely difficult for those students that have been trained properly to break into the industry.

They make false promises about job placements with nothing to back them up.

Future employers, you should be checking these driving schools as well. Do you need drivers?

There are lots of excellent new drivers just looking for the opportunity to prove themselves.

But again I say check out the driving school first before hiring. Talk to the instructor, do some local checking in the area where these future employees have been taught.

Find out what they have been taught.

Then give them a chance.

They are the next generation of truck drivers.

R.H. (Bob) Altenhofen

Kamloops, B.C.