Learning to share road with trucks should be part of drivers license testing: CTA

Provincial governments should require that all driver education courses and drivers’ license tests include information and testing on how to safely share the road with trucks, according to the Canadian Trucking Alliance (CTA).

The Alliance was responding to a Transport Canada study released yesterday that shows that in the vast majority of car-truck collisions the driver of the personal vehicle was at fault. The study, called Heavy Truck Collisions 1994- 1998, shows that where drivers’ actions were assessed, in fatal car-truck collisions involving two vehicles, 74 percent of personal vehicle drivers were found to not have been driving properly.

"This study is the latest to confirm that professional truck drivers are the safest on the road," said David Bradley chief executive officer of CTA. "Unfortunately it also confirmed that motorists too often cause collisions between cars and trucks. All road users have a responsibility to make our roads safe."

According to Bradley, provincial governments should act quickly on this latest report and require that driver education courses and testing include a ‘sharing the road’ component.

He noted that a federal-provincial committee of transportation officials had recently been created to look at this issue.

"This report should energize the committee to move quickly to come up with some recommendations," said Bradley. " It seems to me that making ‘sharing the road’ knowledge and testing mandatory for first-time drivers as well as people renewing their licenses would be a low-cost, high-return safety initiative."

"We hear all the time that some motorists are nervous or intimidated when driving around or near transport trucks. Truck drivers on the other hand complain that many motorists don’t appear to understand the differences between the operating characteristics of cars and trucks. While better driver education and testing would not guard against driver impairment, it would provide motorists with the basic rules for sharing the road safely and increase their comfort-level near trucks."

Bradley says that the trucking industry had already launched a ‘sharing the road’ information campaign with the production and distribution of hundreds of videos and information brochures. He said his association would get behind any government efforts to educate Canadians on the need to follow basic rules when near heavy trucks