Forest Truck Safe director, Mary Anne Arcand, says "It’s largely been something called for by the truckers themselves, who, every day, have a near miss or a fender bender with someone who comes speeding around a corner and there’s no where for the trucker to go.”

Arcand says the speed issues on forestry roads are largely not the logging trucks, so much as the other users, most of whom are in pick ups. “You know industry crews, the welding guys, or the mechanics or the weekend fishermen and hunters who don’t think there are rules out there and once they get off the highway its pedal to the metal.”

The speed limit, unless posted otherwise, is 80 km. “That’s awfully fast already for a gravel road that may have pot holes and maintenance issues” says Arcand.

While some claim this is just another cash grab by the province, Arcand disagrees “It’s not a lot of cash, the fines are not anywhere near what they are on the highways and I’m not sure they are going to be a deterrent in the end, I mean its $85 bucks, but its more about people trying to understand they have to drive just as responsibly in the bush as they do on the pavement.”

According to stats, when there is a crash involving a commercial vehicle, it is the OTHER vehicle that is at fault 85% of the time. Arcand says Chief Lake Road will be very busy this winter, there will be 25 thousand loads coming out of the Nukko Lake, Reid Lake area this winter, heading to Carrier, Canfor and Lakeland “That’s a lot of logs, that’s one every six minutes Monday to Friday.”

Arcand says this is not a government initiative, that it is something that has been driven by the industry itself. Companies may have had radar guns to keep tabs on their own drivers, they didn’t have any teeth to handle others who take on a new attitude when they get off the pavement “It isn’t a free for all out there that you can throw your seatbelt off and say yee-haw here we go.”

Source: 250 News