Dear Editor:

Re: A little hubris isn’t all bad, by Bruce Richards in the May issue of Truck News. He rightly cites trucking’s superior safety record and that cars cause most car/large truck collisions and that large trucks are involved in only 11% of fatalities. Despite these concrete facts, all levels of government have a history of being overzealous and over-regulating the trucking industry with many arbitrary and hypocritical truck laws and restrictions.

Trucker medicals and re-testing and the many local truck road bans are unfair and overly stringent with political overtones. Motorists drive for many decades and don’t face medicals or re-testing.

Truck road bans have been ruled unconstitutional when challenged in court. These arbitrary truck laws and bans cause headaches for truckers, are costly, and cause truckers to leave the industry. Governments ignore greater numbers of car-caused complaints, including car traffic congestion, car street parking, rogue motorists and many more car-caused fatalities.

Governments too often abuse their powers – they need to stop being truck control freaks and start focusing on other traffic and passenger vehicles. Governments and truck critics need to be more accountable and consider total traffic facts, trucker views and rights and truck importance.

Don Bell

Mississauga, Ont.