LANGLEY, B.C. — The B.C. Trucking Association (BCTA) has once again engaged in battle with the local mainstream media this time over an inaccurate news report on B.C. Global TV.

Following a tragic two-truck collision in Williams Lake, B.C., Global TV broadcast a story that suggested hard drugs could have been to blame for the accident. Reporter Darlene Heideman interviewed an anonymous trucker who suggested one-third to one-half of truck drivers are taking hard drugs such as cocaine and crystal meth. The anonymous source also went on to say many truck drivers are violating hours of service regulations.

BCTA president Paul Landry has fired back at the network, demanding an apology from its station manager. He pointed out HealthStar (one of Canada’s largest drug testing service providers) has found that the truck driver failure rate is about two per cent for pre-employment testing and 0.6 per cent for random tests.

Furthermore, the failure rate for cocaine and crystal meth among truckers was 0.1 per cent to 0.2 per cent for cocaine and 0.02 per cent for crystal meth. Landry also pointed out that last year in B.C. there were only 809 tickets issued for hours of service violations and that according to ICBC crash data, extreme fatigue is only to blame for 2.68 per cent of fatal and injury-causing commercial vehicle crashes where the commercial driver was at fault.

Landry demanded an apology and a retraction "on behalf of the thousands of hard working, conscientious and professional men and women and their families in the Canadian trucking industry."