WINNIPEG, Man. – The condition of roads and highways is always an issue that attracts attention in the trucking industry. No less critical than the arteries that sustain our bodies with oxygen and vitamins, quality highways are invaluable to the continued profitability of truck transport.

After countless trips crisscrossing the continent, truckers no doubt develop favorite pieces of asphalt. However, they also find those areas that they’d never choose to revisit; places that provincial and state road crews seem to have forgotten.

Truck News visited the Sun Valley Restaurant to find out what some Winnipeg-based truckers consider to be their least favorite stretches of highway in North America.

There are several areas Richard Richardson doesn’t like to drive.

“I hate having to run the Trans-Canada Highway,” says the lease operator. “It’s time they got the crews out and fixed it up.”

Richardson, who generally shares the cab of his new Mack Vision with his wife Wilma, also points to the ruts he encounters when heading through Medicine Hat, Alta. as something he would like to see changed.

Chuck Garvin is an owner/operator who drives for TCT, and he thinks a blanket approach needs to be taken when considering the continent’s highways.

“Every piece of two-lane should be made into four-lane,” he complains. “And that’s everywhere, from coast-to-coast.”

For Saveway Trucking driver Steve Klusoczky, the route from Virden, Man. through to Indianhead, Sask. is far and away his least favorite in North America.

“They started twinning that road about 12 years ago,” says the driver of a 2000 Sterling. “They got the route all ready and then never poured the concrete.”

He says the respective governments look foolish for apparently forgetting about the highway in the midst of the project.

“The grass has started to grow through now,” he complains.

An owner/operator who runs his 2000 W900B Kenworth with TCT, Jim Olson argues his least favorite highway is I-35 south from Oklahoma City, Okla. to Dallas.

“The traffic is just bumper-to-bumper,” he complains.

Olson says he primarily hauls meat from the Maritimes to Mexico and everywhere in between and he’s seen some bad highways on the way, but I-35 still takes the prize.

A company driver with Paramount Truck Lines, Eric Gergatz says there are several areas he hates.

“I-29 to Kansas City is a very rough piece of four-lane,” he says. “It’s so choppy you can hear the truck knocking the whole way.”

But for “pure boringness” his least favorite is the run from Regina into Alberta.

“I try to roll through there at night,” says Gergatz, who drives a ’99 Volvo 610. “It’s the only place where your dog can run away and three days later you can still see him running.” n