Dave brings to you 38 years of valuable experience in transportation, management, business and compliance. Dave has driven in every condition across North America and overseas as military, police, company driver to owner operator to now Publisher Editor of Canadian Trucking Magazine.
What a contest do we have for any of our readers on facebook! Go to our facebook page Canadian Trucking Magazine and click LIKE at the top of the page. Find the AD posted there and also click LIKE and share it. For clicking LIKE your name will automatically be entered. When you SHARE it, everytime someone you shared our page with clicks LIKE, they are entered and you are again. When we reach 5000 Fans we will pull 14 names for $50 and 1 for $100 for a SOURCE gift card. It should be fast and easy as we have 2700 Fans right now the largest number of Fans of any transport magazine. If each one shared with one friend thats 5000.
If you don’t have facebook, I am sure your better half or rugrats do. If all fails and you still want to win some great prizes from CTM, well that is easy too! Come say Hi to me at the upcoming truck shows and events. I always have thousands in prizes and swag at the booth. The SOURCE has always come to the plate to promote thesource.ca, the web site easy to use from anywhere you have internet to order the toys we deserve and the tools we need for on the road. Plan ahead now and watch for the truck shows in this magazine as I am sure you will be near one or more of them in the next few months. If you have never taken in FERGUS or the Big Rig week-ends you have no idea what you are missing. Kids if you have them will never forget you taking them to these shows and brother and sister these shows bring out the kid in us. Dryden show is a little different this year as they are doing 4x4s, and who does not love those. continued on page 4
3
continued from page 3
It was a rainy day in Manitoba, but the Vets were smiling!
Ken Poitras, a Vietnam Vet years of Canadian Armed Forces Service, a Trucker and expert in the Transportation Business and a person I am honoured and humbled to call my Comrade, Brother and Friend spearheaded and pushed to make sure Manitoba had a Highway of Heroes. The Premier of Manitoba was there and a few Generals, the media and others, but most importantly were the Vets and serving members with some who had lost love ones in service to us. Remember a Policeman, Fireman, Ambulance, Rescue, Military is a person that at sometime in thier career wrote a blank cheque up to and including thier life in service for us. If you see one in line at the coffee shop, buy them thier coffee and shake thier hand and thank them for thier service. Now in many Provinces when you drive down a strip of Highway you will see a sign dedicating that small piece of black top to these brave giving individuals that are or were someones Dad, Mom, Grandparent, Son or Daughter, Brother or Sister, Family or Friend, give them the respect they deserve with a moment of remembrance.
Coming at us quick here is the Fergus Truck Show, Largest Truck Show in Canada! CTM will be there right out front in Booth M26 same as last year. Prizes again from the Source and Big Front Grills, BFG. I can’t tell you how happy I am to put a BFG on a truck at each Truck show I attend. A few times now I have been contacted back by the winner with stories of saves these moose catchers or moron mashers have demonstrated. It just makes sense to put one on as these ones of stainless steel weigh only 230lbs, cost tops 2,500 and driver that is one tow job in Northern Ontario. If you go to buy a BFG mention CTM 100 for 100 buck off! I am a toy kinda guy, so the toys and gift cards from thesource.ca also hit the spot and go to good use to the recipients. So while you are reading this the CTM crew and I are at a show or on the road to one. Come say HI ! and how you like our magazine and what we can do to improve it. Looking forward to yakking with you!
You all be safe out there, I would rather hear from you than about you!
HAPPY TRAILS........ Dave
CBP Makes $362 Million Cocaine Bust
On April 20, a P-3 plane operating in the Western Caribbean spotted two what they call go-fast vessels 120 miles off the coast of Panama. The two 40-foot twin-engine vessels were spotted speeding north and appeared to be loaded with numerous packages, the Florida based U.S. CBP P-3 plane began tracking them. Local law enforcement pursued the two vessels, who attempted to evade authorities. One vessel abandoned the contraband before arriving on shore, while the second was seized nearby. The U.S. Navy team recovered 89 bales of cocaine. This seizure is in addition to the $2.8 billion detected by the CBP P-3s operating out of Jacksonville, Fla. and Corpus Christi, Texas since October 2011. On April 25, 2012, U.S. Customs and Border Protection office of Air and Marine National Air Security Operations Center in Jacksonville, Florida detected two vessels carrying more than 4,840 pounds of cocaine with a combined value of more than $362 million. During 2011, U.S. CBP P-3 fleet continued its anti-smuggling success by seizing over 148,000 pounds of cocaine valued at more than $11.1 billion, totaling 20.6 pounds seized for every flight hour, valued at $1.5 million for every hour flown. CBP P-3s have been an integral part of the successful counter-narcotic missions operating in coordination with the Joint Interagency Task Force – South (JIATFS). The P-3s patrol in a 42 million square mile area of the Western Caribbean and Eastern Pacific, known as the Source and Transit Zone, in search of drugs that are in transit towards U.S. shores . The P-3s’ distinctive detection capabilities allow highly-trained crews to identify emerging threats well beyond the land borders of the U.S. By providing surveillance of known air, land, and maritime smuggling routes in an area that is twice the size of the continental U.S., the P-3s detect, monitor and disrupt smuggling activities before they reach shore.
By: Dawn Truell, President, Cross Border Services US Customs and Border Protection Border Patrol agents made a significant drug seizure last week at a highway traffic checkpoint. Border Patrol agents discovered 2,226 pounds of marijuana in a 1997 tractor-trailer that was bound for Michigan. The driver of the truck, a US Citizen from Tennessee, was questioned about the contents of cargo. While in the secondary inspection area, a CBP Border Patrol canine was requested and alerted on the trailer area. Agents searched the trailer and found several cellophane bundles contained in boxes. A total of 21 boxes containing 113 cellophane bundles of marijuana were retrieved, weighing 2,226 pounds. The value of the contraband is estimated at $1,700,000. The driver, identified as 44-year old Walter Gene Bruce, was taken into cus-
tody and turned over to the Drug Enforcement Administration in Las Cruces with the contraband and truck.
For further information please contact Dawn Truell, President, Cross Border Services, at: www.crossborderservices.org, crossborderservices@cogeco.net.
Note from Dave here, if you see suspicious activity, persons asking you for a ride acrosss the border in your truck, a loose lipped driver talking about smuggling loads of drugs or weapons, do us all a favour and contact authorities. Try to get as much information as possible without becoming involved and shut these bad guys down!
Throwing Parts at It
By Sandy Long
14
Every truck driver and car owner understands the term “throwing parts” at a problem; when a mechanic cannot figure out what is wrong with a vehicle large or small, they just say, “might be this, I will replace it.” Nevertheless, it does not fix the problem, only the mechanic or shop benefits. We are seeing that attitude in trucking. By now, the whole world knows of the efforts of the FMCSA and special interest groups to bring down the accident rates involving trucks to a zero level; this effort is featured in national news reports. Because of the political power of groups such as Parents Against Tired Truckers (PATT) FMCSA has focused on fatigue as being the major cause of accidents though statistics do not support this factor. To fight this so-called fatigue factor, supposedly found in all truckers, FMCSA is literally throwing parts at driver’s fatigue without addressing the real issues behind most accidents. Technological developers and device manufacturers who stand to make a financial killing off the ‘fatigue’ regulations are supplying the parts. The technological parts are widespread. Recently, in a discussion with a customer service engineer of a major truck manufac-
turer, he was touting the benefits of a device that will slow or stop a truck if it got to close to another vehicle ahead of it in case the driver falls asleep. When I showed little appreciation for the device, he was surprised that I was not gung ho on it. “But,” he said, “I thought you were all about safety.” This is a common response of people due to propaganda from the special interest groups when someone does not jump on their bandwagon. Electronic On Board Recorders (EOBRs) are being pushed to remove the ‘human’ factor from the hours of service equation along with being able to show what a truck driver was doing at the exact point of an accident ie, hard braking, speed, etc. The plain EOBR system, without electronic logs, are already available thru the truck’s engine computer system in a slightly less sophisticated manner with hard braking incidents being recorded and can be set up to record speed. The e-logs were not in place in the industry a month before both drivers and dispatchers figured out ways to get around them. That old ‘human’ factor thing again as dispatchers can adjust a driver’s hours from the terminal if they want to and drivers can go off duty and keep driving though they take a chance in being caught. The latest type of technological device touted is the anti rollover system to alert the driver if the trailer is about to tip over. This system is attached to the back of the truck and records deviation of the trailer from level. If the trailer devi-
ates past a certain point, an alarm goes off, supposedly to ‘wake’ up the driver to the problem. Health enters in with sleep apnea at the forefront. The dollar signs are in everyone’s eyes as even carriers jump on the bandwagon and open sleep clinics in their terminals and offer ‘lease purchase’ of cpap machines to drivers. If a driver is overweight, Katey bar the door, because he/she is going to be sleep tested without recourse if they want to continue to drive. The poor overweight driver is out several thousand dollars when it is over and the medical device manufacturers and the sleep study clinics keep the weight off running to the bank. As far as the real causes of fatigue in truck drivers, no one wants to find the real problems involved. Long delays at shippers and receivers, inadequate parking, anti-idling laws, being pushed beyond one’s limits by dispatchers and brokers who cannot/will not reschedule appointments to fit the driver’s schedule, maximize your hours attitudes by companies, lack of adequate hometime and a hundred other factors actually affect whether a driver gets fatigued or not. Both and the government companies can easily solve most of these issues yet the issues are ignored or downplayed. The real causes of most accidents are simple, going too fast for conditions and lack of good training for the entry-level drivers; the first could be solved by the last.
Is the FMCSA really looking at training regulations being strengthened? No, they are not, citing that there is no data showing that entry-level drivers are less safe than experienced ones. Wait though, could it be that there is not enough money to be made by making trucking schools and/or carriers properly train their newest drivers? No benefit to manufacturers and inventors, just more time from the carrier to ensure that their drivers can do the job properly and safely is the obvious reason, costing them a little more money on the training end. So, OK, let’s just throw some more parts at the problem, it won’t fix the problem at all, but it sure looks good on the bottom line.
Ya’ll be safe and I wish you peace and some serenity in your busy lives. (www.facebook.com/theoneandonlytv), email (trkrsvoice@thetruckersvoice.net), or twitter (@trkingsantas).“ Street Smarts: A Guide to a Truck Driver's Personal Safety
Do not cuss a trucker or a farmer with your mouth full!
15