With 35 years of combined publishing experience, you will see this unique and much improved trucking magazine called Pro Trucker Driver's Choice Magazine

John White: EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
Posted By John White: EDITOR-IN-CHIEF On 2020-02-07 06:44:53

Welcome to 2020 and Pro-Trucker Driver’s Choice Magazine. Pro-Trucker has been publishing for 21 years, and Driver’s Choice has been publishing for 14 years. We have now merged to form this unique and much-improved trucking magazine. Our 35 years of combined publishing experience has taught us that the perfect trucking magazine should give you what we both have individually given you in the past. You will still be able to read articles from your favourite writers and have a platform to express your personal concerns, but now, compliments of Driver’s Choice, you will have more current job opportunities, and parts and services advertisements, of any trucking magazine in Canada – all in one magazine and right at your fingertips. Another significant change is that Driver’s Choice already distributes in Ontario, so Pro-Trucker’s readers from Ontario will now be able to pick up Pro-Trucker Driver’s Choice at their local truck stop. I, as the editor, still intend to bore you with my sometimes overly opinionated and not necessarily right, point of view of the trucking world. Hopefully, as in the past, this will encourage conversation and, through letters, continue to give you a platform to share your views. Pro-Trucker’s talented, occasionally humorous, and sometimes a little strange, writers will also continue to share their stories about life on the road.


Pro-Trucker Driver’s Choice will continue to hold the government’s feet to the fire to
make your workplace safer by putting in place MELT programs that actually do what they
were initially intended to do. Not just knee jerk reactions that leave out very fundamental
things like training for specialty loads and the many different truck-trailer combinations.
Not to mention essential things like chaining up. This brings up mountain driver training.
Today, in the eyes of the government, a driver who has never seen the mountains is fully
qualified to maneuver over them in the dead of winter, pulling any and all loads. Apparently,
our politicians have never tuned in to Highway Thru Hell or Heavy Rescue:401. (Did I
mention my sarcasm will still be alive and well?)


It is good to see people getting on board and questioning why ICBC and the BC government, two years after the Humboldt tragedy, have yet to do anything towards implementing a MELT other than to paying it political lip service This is not just a BC problem; this is a national problem because drivers from across Canada are still forced to share the road with new drivers from BC who have not gone through a MELT program. BC has the most dangerous mountain roads in the country with steep grades and unpredictable weather changes, yet provincial politicians have sat back and watched as first Ontario, then the prairie provinces have all implemented a MELT program.


The political doublespeak that BC politicians and ICBC use are just to appease the
voters so that the politicians do not have to commit to a timeline. Statements like, “We
are closely watching other provinces’ programs” or “Applicants for a Class 1 commercial
driver’s licence in B.C. are required to undergo robust testing…” Those statements can be
described as stalling for time at best but could just as easily be seen as pure negligence by
our politicians whose duty it is to protect you and the general public. I stand by the editorial
that I wrote just after the Humboldt tragedy. Every politician in Canada owns part of that
and any other accident involving a new truck driver.


If, as stated, safety was the primary concern of our politicians, they would be working
on a national Class 1 apprenticeship program with graduated licensing that would culminate
with a Red Seal Certification.


Previous Blogs

Bella Coola by Glen Mallard

Hole in One by Dave Madill

On The Wrong Road by John Maywood

Wildlife by Colin Black

On the Road Again by Myrna Chartrand...

Cooking Class by Scott Casey

Know Your Limits by Ed Murdoch...

2020 Vision by Greg Evasiuk...

Jokes

With 35 years of combined publishing experience, you will see this unique and much improved trucking magazine called Pro Trucker Driver's Choice Magazine

Getting Started

Lawful Torture

Little Star

It's Now Or Never

Winter Blues

Sheep

The First Time

Let's Block the Road!

In the Face of History

Human Trafficing

Nature’s Child

Distracted Driving

WE EXIST TO ASSIST

The Virus

"What do you look forward to?"

“Fuel Tanks”

You want me to go where?

From Zero to Hero to Zero

ELD’s and Speed Limiters – Are They Really Safe?

The Dream (July 2005)

The Lonesome Camaraderie of the Transportation Industry

Strange Times

Lockdown Toilets

Life goes on

The Czech Invasion.

A Steep Learning Curve

Fools Casting Calls

We Are All In This Together

How to get Time Off

A New Year

Added Benefits of Trucking

An ill Wind

Loving the Road

Insecure Loads

Memories

All Things Shiny and New

B-Trains

The Good Ol’ Days

Cold Trip

Brexit

A Moment’s Distraction

Have or Have not

Music and Me

Travels With Ringo

Distracted Driver

Changes

ELDs, Roads and Covid

Female of The Species

The Switch

Flood of 60

Crimes Against Humanity

Training Hours

In the Truck’s Clutches

Attitude & Altitude

Wide Open Spaces (and closed in places)

Trucking is a Trade

A night to remember

Loading Heavy Equipment

CLIMATE CHANGE & TRUCKING

Truck Routes

Then and Now

Attitude & Altitude

A Girl Just Wants to Have Fun…

The Weekend!

Unity

How I Write

In The Beginning Part 3

Tires and Unions

Stay Safe

My Rant…

Isolation

I learned a New Trick

It ain’t the years - it’s the miles.

It’s Time, Gentlemen, Time

Coincidences

The Brain

Blind Man's Buff

Editor's Note

The Flitting

Eastbound

What I Did This Summer

Pictures

Adventure

Show Ready

Trolls

Big Rig Weekends

Love and Trucking

Books and Covers

Like a Boss

It's a Wonderful World

Common Sense By Glen “The duck” Millard

Dad meets a “Bear.”

All Experience isn’t Good Experience…

The Weather Outside is Frightful…

Common Sense

Bad Breaks and Good Luck

Driving Through My Memories for January/February 2023

Service???

Time to Reset!

Halcyon Days of Trucking

All Experience…

The Piggy Bus Encounter

Sports and Life Lessons

Winter Storms

Humboldt Tragedy_MELT program

Driving Through My Memories

On The Road Again

Wait Over Weight

I Write

Elliot Lake

The Good (?) Old Trucks

Canadian and Proud of it

Six Cans for Buffalo Joe

Monkeys and Peanuts

Safety First

30? 60? 90? Late Pay

Nothing New

Technology

Has anything changed?

Holidays - Then Back To The Grind.

Old Trucker Troubles

Loose Moose

Some of the Trucks I've Seen

The Last Ride

Cold Load Home

Make it a Holiday

Winter Wonderland Trucking

Thinning the Herd

Just Be There…

And to All, a Good Night!

Dumb and Dumber

Helping Out in a Clutch

The Good, The Bad and the Ugly.

Driver Retention Matters_ New Volvo VNL

Consistency

Tires and Trouble

Idle time

Dinner on the Road

Load Security

Tourist Trucking

The Last Ride