MONCTON, N.B. – Minding chocks and blocks, properly measuring pushrod stroke and not stalling in the middle of an intersection isn’t all you’ll have to do if you want to get a commercial driver’s licence in Canada in the future.

Speaking to Maritime carriers at the annual Atlantic Provinces Trucking Association general meeting in Moncton, Lynda Harvey of NRcan said that plans are underway to make fuel efficiency practices and education part of the class 1 testing and certified driver training curriculums.

The five-phase project is still in the initial stages and expected to take as many as 10 years to complete.

So far, seven provinces have signed on and two others are reviewing the program.

The fuel efficiency standards for licensing will be heavily based on the vehicle care and maintenance, fuel management, and driving skills and behavior components of Natural Resources Canada’s FleetSmart-SmartDriver Highway Trucking training program.

The first phase, already underway, will be integrating fuel efficiency information in provincial commercial driving handbooks. (Some provinces don’t have class 1 handbooks, but that’s another story).

Secondly, relevant questions will be put into written tests.

Then comes integrating fuel efficiency components into approved driver training curriculums and training materials; introducing appropriate FleetSmart tools and publications to regional licensing offices; and establishing links to SmartDriver from all territorial licensing websites.

Harvey says the program, when fully implemented, could save over 300 million liters of fuel and cut 2.1 megatonnes of green house gases over five years.