Why rules rule: Bradley

TORONTO – Unenforced regulations are bad for trucking.

That’s the message Canadian Trucking Alliance (CTA) president and CEO David Bradley brought to a conference on crime in the transportation business this week.

"We have a lot of regulations and rules in the trucking industry, but unless they are enforced and enforced effectively, they lose credibility," Bradley told attendees at the annual National Pipeline/Convoy Conference in Toronto.

And when regulations lose credibility, some people will use that as an opportunity to cut corners on maintenance, on safety, he said.

Bradley made his remarks after the CTA received a 2011 Pipeline/Convoy Partnership Award for its work in promoting cooperation between police and the trucking industry in combating crime that involves trucks.

"I am reminded every night when I watch the news from places like Afghanistan, or East Africa, where lawlessness is a fact of life, just how lucky we are to live in Canada and to have our police services."

That’s why the CTA and the provincial trucking associations want strong, effective enforcement of the rules of the road.

Lawbreakers, he said, expose the motoring public and their own employees to greater risk.

They are also putting their businesses and everyone else’s business for that matter, at risk too — not just from the liabilities associated with a crash such as fines, civil suits, higher insurance premiums — but from employing a business model that inevitably leads to pricing below what it takes to run a business properly and make a profit.

"The market does not work properly unless everyone is playing by the rules," he adds.

"While my members are still fiercely independent and competitive and while trucking remains one of the last great bastions of Canadian entrepreneurship they believe that competition should be based on service and price, where price includes the true cost of compliance for all."