Safety is always BCTA’s highest priority. Not only is it right for the industry to follow safe practices in properly maintaining its vehicles and hiring safe drivers, it’s also good business. Because the trucking industry shares its workplace with the public, our responsibility for being as careful and safe as possible is that much greater. Most of our advocacy work is focused on ensuring that carriers have the necessary tools to be and stay safe, encouraging fair but firm regulations and effective enforcement, and promoting the responsibility of shippers to hire safe trucking companies.
Ongoing Initiatives
Because safety laws and regulations can be complex and, in BC, involve a number of different government ministries and agencies, advances can take years to achieve. For several years, BCTA has been advocating the need to provide motor carriers with timely information about driver infractions and licence status so that they can carry out their responsibility to ensure that they dispatch legal and qualified drivers. Because motor carriers face a challenge supervising their workers on the road, BCTA has also advised government of the need to recognize shared responsibility. For example, despite company policies, drivers could still speed. While companies are ultimately responsible for the behaviour of their workers, workers can’t abdicate complete responsibility for their own decisions.
Another major area of concern is the National Safety Code (NSC) program, which rates carrier safety and determines when audits or other interventions should occur. BCTA believes that there is ample opportunity to improve the standard and the program.
BCTA also works hard on educating non-commercial drivers on how to interact safely with large commercial vehicles, whose maneuverability and braking distance are very different from smaller passenger vehicles. BCTA partners with the Insurance Corporation of BC (ICBC), the BC Automobile Association (BCAA) and other like-minded organizations to keep that message front and centre.
BCTA also believes that driver licensing, testing, and re-testing standards should be higher to ensure that licence holders are adequately skilled and qualified given their public safety responsibility.
Two of BCTA’s highest profile and most controversial policy positions are on mandating the use of electronic on-board recorders (EOBRs) and speed limiters. Many critics of these two BCTA positions say that they would be unnecessarily obstructive regulations. While no technology can take the place of common sense, there is a small but hardcore and visible segment of the industry that unfortunately will only apply common sense if forced. Like any law or regulation, mandated use of EOBRs and speed limiters is aimed at the lowest common denominator. We think that requiring the use of these technologies will both reassure the public and deal with chronic non-compliers who give the entire industry a bad name and compete unfairly with safe carriers.
(A discussion of BCTA’s safety-related initiatives is included in our April 2010 High Road to Truck Safety.)
Achievements
2011
Participated in a joint BCTA-government NSC Task Force, formed at our suggestion, to review and develop recommendations covering audits, carrier profiles, enforcement, penalty points, applications and risk bands. A report is due in 2012. The Commercial Vehicle Safety and Enforcement (CVSE) branch has already implemented some strategies, such as cancelling inactive NSC Safety Certificates as of January 31, 2012, to prevent their use as backup by carriers who lose their main certificate through non-compliance.
- Addressed deterioration and resulting poor visibility of pavement markings associated with a change from oil-based to water-based paint, including reconsideration of the new federal environmental paint standard that required the change.
2010
Partnered with the provincial government to develop the new Premium Carrier Program, achieved greater enforcement of non-compliant Designated Inspection Facilities, and introduction of a roadside licence plate removal program for mechanically unsafe trucks. BCTA advocated these initiatives for a number of years, including through active participation in the Truck Compliance Advisory Panel, formed by the government in 2008.
Developed strategies with stakeholder groups to reduce truck crashes on Highway 5A (see the Advocacy Infrastructure webpage for details).
Developed, distributed and promoted flyers for shippers about partnering with safe trucking companies.
2009
BCTA’s President & CEO Paul Landry participated on a three-person government-sponsored panel to examine how to reduce out-of-service rates and improve enforcement strategies. The resulting Truck Compliance Advisory Panel Report (April 2009) recommendations focus on four priorities:
creating a premium carrier program to recognize and reward safe carriers
promoting greater responsibility and accountability for shippers
strengthening roadside enforcement of vehicle maintenance through licence plate seizures
expediting inspection of Designated Inspection Facilities that have checked and decaled unsafe equipment
The government began a pilot project early in 2010 to test the criteria for seizing the licence plates of flagrantly sub-standard vehicles in the Lower Mainland. BCTA was also actively involved in the implementation plan for the other recommendations.
Recommended a complete review of the NSC program, including entry standards, carrier profiles, penalty points and intervention levels.
ICBC acted on a BCTA recommendation to emulate private sector insurance companies by more accurately setting rates based on risk. ICBC intends to identify fleets with high claims frequencies and consider limiting their coverage or increasing deductibles for optional insurance coverage. ICBC will also increase its range of premiums, with higher rates for high-risk carriers.
2008
In February 2008, the Trucking Safety Council of BC (TSCBC) officially began operation, followed by a public launch in September. BCTA founded TSCBC in 2007 with funding of $324,000 for two years from WorkSafeBC to focus on safety-related programs, services and information for the trucking industry, including the design and implementation of a safety certificate of recognition (COR) program. The COR program promotes industry safety by offering rebates of up to 15% off WorkSafeBC premiums to companies in the General Trucking and Moving and Storage classification units that implement health and safety management systems in their workplaces and successfully undergo a safety audit.
Then Transportation and Infrastructure Minister Kevin Falcon requested that Paul Landry represent trucking company owners and managers on the Truck Compliance Advisory Panel, in company with representatives for drivers and the ministry.
Supported ICBC's new Driver Risk Premium (DRP) system aimed at more realistically reflecting the costs of dangerous driving practices in terms of increased crash rates and insurance claims, which replaced the more lenient Driver Penalty Points (DPP) system over a three-year period from 2008 to 2010. BCTA has long called for significant penalties for dangerous and unsafe drivers. DRP rates, which are higher than penalty point fines, are calculated based on the type of motor vehicle convictions that have been shown to cause both crashes and claims, including excessive speed, roadside suspensions and/or Criminal Code of Canada vehicle-related convictions.
For more information about TSCBC, visit www.safetydriven.ca.
2007
Convinced WorkSafeBC to implement a claims management pilot project that assigned a dedicated team of WorkSafeBC staff in the Surrey and Langley catchment area to review all serious time-loss claims, in order to identify issues specific to trucking and in the hopes of getting injured employees back to work more quickly. BCTA also communicated a list of best practices for more efficient time-loss claims management to industry employers.
Supported a call by CTA for all heavy truck OEM’s to voluntarily install anti-rollover devices as standard equipment on all new trucks manufactured in North America.
The BC Professional Truck Driver Training Program, developed by BCTA with input from industry experts, is another initiative that promotes safety, specifically through the development of higher standards for training commercial drivers. For more information visit BCTA’s Advocacy webpage on Human Resources.