KAMLOOPS, B.C. — After a handful of recent accidents on Highway 5A, a B.C. politician is looking to get truckers banned from the stretch of road between Merritt and Kamloops.

Although not all of the accidents were the fault of truckers, Minister of Tourism Kevin Krueger didn’t have any kind words for the trucking community when he called for the ban.

Krueger suggested to local media that truckers are using the highway 5A instead of the Coquihalla to save on wear and tear on their trucks, but the traffic is too much for "the little highway."

And then he stopped being nice.

"Some of these guys [truck drivers] are just crazy,” he was quoted as saying. "They’re driving too fast. They’re crashing their rigs into each other and, worse yet, they’re crashing their rigs into people who have nothing to do with the way they’re driving.”

There were four accidents involving large trucks along the stretch of highway in the last month.

In one incident, a semi sideswiped another truck, after one of the drivers fell asleep at the wheel, according to police. In another, an SUV crashed into an oncoming trucker, but the SUV was reportedly driving erratically before the accident.

Regardless of who’s at fault, Krueger says he’ll ask the Ministry of Transportation to ban trucks on the route.

“Whatever percentage of them it is that are driving like idiots, there have been enough of them that we’ve got to act,” he said.

However, Paul Landry, president and CEO of the B.C. Trucking Association, says a ban is not the answer. He blames the problems on a few bad drivers and believes most trucking companies using the route are good corporate citizens.

"It would just be a signal to many other communities that trucks could be banned from public highways that trucks pay taxes for," he said.

While the politicians may be quick to cast blame, truckers do have an ally in the local police.

The RCMP told media that people need to be careful not to overreact and it’s important to determine the root cause of each accident.

Although there’s been a flurry of accidents recently, Cpl. Mike Pears says there are far less crashes on the route over the last year than residents think.