Scott Casey was our Rig of the Month for May 2008 and a long-time associate writer. He wrote "Ghostkeepers," a book about his years as a gun-toting truck driver, serving as a Canadian Peacekeeper in the former Yugoslavia. Scott, the son of Bill "Diesel" Casey, is a second-generation driver. After leaving the military, while still driving a truck, he served as President of Military Minds, a group dedicated to helping soldiers and first responders with PTSD. Scott Casey is now the President and founder of The Rolling Barrage PTSD Foundation. The Rolling Barrage is an annual motorcycle ride from coast to coast across Canada in support of soldiers and first responders with PTSD. The public is encouraged to join the ride for the full or partial duration of the trip. Numerous overnight stops in towns and cities across Canada wholeheartedly welcome the riders. For more information, go to https://therollingbarrage.com/

Being Professional – No Grey Areas

The other day, I travelled from Jasper, Alberta, to home in Merritt BC. I was making a brief stop in Valemount to visit my son and the local brewer. At this stop, I followed a commercial vehicle into town. There were a few vehicles in between the tractor-trailer and my vehicle. The driver made the left turn and an immediate right onto the service road and stopped momentarily. Then, without warning, he began backing up through the side road intersection, where I waited behind another vehicle. The driver was attempting to back into a posted No Thru Road. He not only backed through the intersection but parked in the right turn lane of the opposing side of the intersection.

Driving forward, we have limited blind spots and are continuously watching for hazards. When backing up, though, our vision is obscured, making backing up a vehicle one of our most dangerous maneuvers. That danger is multiplied exponentially when it is a tractor-trailer because of the immense blind spots created by the vehicle's sheer size. In this case, what this driver did was not only completely unsafe but also completely illegal.

I posted the video to a Trucking Fails social media page for educational purposes. The ensuing comments were loaded with ignorance, contempt for the law, and outright irreverence for professional conduct in the defence of laziness and deplorable standards.

Enter the social media super truckers. "But what about this, and what about that? He is just doing his job. Leave him alone. He is just making a delivery. This is nothing, you should see what happens in my city. Four-wheel superheroes are telling us how to do our jobs." And my personal favourite, "I do this all the time in that same spot."

There are rules that apply to almost every facet of driving a tractor-trailer. So much so that many drivers, including myself, are lobbying for an industry standard, Journey Person, Red Seal Certification.

As professional drivers, we are implored to do the right thing. That's what being a professional is all about - doing the right thing all the time. Shortcuts lead to accidents, injury, or death. And believe me, the commercial trucking industry has more than doubled its accident statistics in the last five years.
It's those very rules, and not just how loosely followed they are, but that they are completely circumnavigated for convenience by so many truck drivers. These drivers are so casual about how they've done such dangerous driving that they defend themselves and others vehemently as though it is an accepted behaviour. Even when they are ticketed for the violation, they chant to themselves that they have been done wrong because they don't want to park and walk the extra 500 steps to the coffee stop. Many truck drivers today are too lazy even to use a washroom; instead, they stand on the running board and urinate while facing traffic. Trust me, no one wants to see that. I can confirm none of that is an accepted behaviour by any decent human being or professional driver.

These dangerous and reprehensible acts only detract from the trucking industry, making fertile grounds for further regulations and laws governing it.