“Hi! My name is Arnie Vaughan and I’m a driver with SLH Transport out of Bedford, N.S. I live in New Minas, N.S. with my wife, Bonny.

I grew up around trucks. When I was young, my neighbour across the road was a trucker. But I first served as a police officer for several years before I got into trucking. When I got out of high school, I initially joined the RCMP, but I eventually worked with municipal forces in both Ontario and the Maritimes. From there I went out west to Alberta. I did some trucking out there, but eventually I started up my own private investigation business which I operated until 1991. I moved back to Nova Scotia in 1993 and in 1994, I started up my private investigation business again.

But when I got into my sixties, I figured I’d been around the judicial system long enough and thought I would entertain a new career in trucking. So I bought myself a Peterbilt and I ran it for about two years before I sold the truck, got out of the business and retired. I was off the road for about two years before I came back out again to drive for a gentleman named Donnie Myers from Lantz, N.S. He’s an excellent guy and an excellent truck boss and SLH is a great company to work for. The dispatchers there are superb too. Bob McLeod and Keith McEwen are two of the top dispatchers in the country.

When I’m not driving, I like playing music. I play the fiddle, the guitar and the mandolin. Prior to working with Donnie, I had my own country and bluegrass band. I played for a lot of benefit shows. If there were ever any folks that were down and out, we’d put on a benefit show for them and all proceeds would go to the needy. I haven’t played for a little while now and I kind of miss it.

I read Truck News even back when I was doing my investigation business. If I wasn’t busy back then, I would still drive from time to time, running a friend’s truck for a week or two so they could square things up at home. When I’m running into the states, I’ll often grab a stack of Truck News and drop them off at truck stops along the way (and they seem to disappear too!) I find Truck News very informative. It keeps us up to date on new regulations, but I also like that the health and well-being of the driver is taken up by the magazine with the regular health columns.

I also like how Truck News sometimes focuses on driving habits – both the good and the bad. Because of my background with law enforcement, one thing I always notice on the road is aggressive driving habits from both four-wheelers and truck drivers. Aggressive lane changes, no signals, tailgating, and other things I see out there. I personally think it would be a terrific idea if they would take a police officer from each station across the country and put them with a trucker on the road for a day or two, so they could see what’s going on out there outside of their cruiser.

I’m almost 70 years old now and I’m the oldest of the boys left in the family. They’re all retired now, but I just don’t want to. You get to see so much country operating big rigs. You also meet a lot of nice people. There are a lot of truckers out there that are really professional people and I can name an awful lot of trucking friends on the highway. I just really enjoy this job.”