CRASH can’t get it right

Dear Editor,

In the Canadian Memorandum of Understanding on truck weights and dimensions, there is reference to three kinds of “road trains”: A train, B train and C train. Whilst I know what the first two are, I should be grateful if you or one of your readers could give me a definition of “C train”. n

John S Ingham

Stockholm

Ed: Glad to oblige. A C-train incorporates a double drawbar dolly, with two arms, two pintle hooks and its own fifth wheel. It’s similar to an A-train configuration, which incorporates a single pintle hook.

Dear Editor,

The trucking industry has been under intense public and media scrutiny. Over the past several years, highly sensational, misleading reports on truck safety were dominant in media reports. Now trucker fatigue and truck crashes are hyped by the media and warped special interests.

Narrow-minded special interests including the prejudiced railway-funded Canadians for Responsible and Safe Highways (CRASH) and Parents Against Tired Truckers (PATT) are all notorious for targeting trucks. They ignore the role played by drunk and careless drivers of cars. Further, such non-profit groups pay no taxes. CN has been subsidized by the government to the tune of $96 billion (Toronto Star, June 24, 1995), yet its lobbying efforts insist trucking is low taxed.

Similarly, the Canadian Automotive Association has recently targeted Ontario’s infamous Hwy. 401, blaming the government when it’s careless motorists who are the main culprits. The politically motivated addition of 21 truck inspectors – when none of the route’s fatalities occurred because of unsafe trucks – defies logic. Talk about hype!

As your columnist Blair Gough rightly stated in December 1998, trucker fatigue is overblown. Only 10 per cent of trucking is long haul. Other motorists can work and drive endlessly with no restrictions, while truckers are regulated in the hours they can work. Trucking has been too silent on these injustices. n

Don Bell

Mississauga, Ont.