Trucker earns Driver of the Year Award

CAM DUTZ HAS BEEN DRIVING FOR MORE THAN 50 YEARS IN THE TRUCKING INDUSTRY

dave_eagles@kamloopsthisweek.com

Scamp Transport truck driver Cam Dutz of Kamloops has won the BC Trucking Association Driver of The Year Award. Dutz has been hauling fuel for more than 50 years, which works out to more than 100,000 hours behind the wheel of a truck.

For 15 of those years, Dutz has driven for Scamp Transport in Kamloops and has logged 38,000 hours during that time — that’s 2.4-million kilometres of hauling more than one-quarter-of-a-billion litres of fuel.

It is the equivalent of driving around the world six times or going to the moon and back three times.

Dutz spoke of the reason for his success as a driver, speaking recently in a YouTube video.

“To maintain my good record over the years, I have tried to stay focused on what I’m doing, appreciate what I’m hauling and not just making it about me,” Dutz said. “It has to be about everybody around me also that has to be taken care of on the road.”

Scamp Transport general manager Jay Campbell said the BC Trucking Association could not have chosen a better candidate to win the award.

“Only the word of truth comes out of Cam’s mouth. He is more diligent than all of us put together. He is just a virtuous soul,” Campbell said.

Dutz became the first person in B.C. to drive an eight-axle, B-train on the highway (a B-train is a tractor unit towing a semitrailer that has a dolly with a fifth wheel on the back, to which another semi-trailer is attached).

Scamp is a family business that originally began in 1981 with one truck. It now operates four branch offices in B.C. — in Kamloops, Langley, Prince George and Vancouver Island — and has become the premier bulk petroleum transporter in Western Canada.