Driving the speed limit, being courtious to other drivers on the roads and highways and quit "drag racing" down the bypass would help.

As for logging roads themselves, use the radio and call your kilometers whether you think someone else is on the road or not. The radio is a life saving tool for the job.

Has anyone any idea of the kinds of hours logging truck drivers log when they are hauling?

I would like to know what the guidelines are with WCB in regards to the maximum amount of hours a driver can log as well as the minimum amount of hours of rest between each shift?

I don't believe I am stretching it to say that many of our logging truck drivers as well as highway haulers are driving under exhaustion.

I would suggest that this is the leading cause of accidents. Get up at 3:00am and watch all of the drivers heading off to work. Go to their homes or shops at the end of the shift and you will find them servicing their vehicles until 8:00, 9:00 or 10:00 at night just to get them ready for the next shift a few short hours away.

They claim that they need to put in long days just to make ends meet with the high cost of fuel etc. Chester

This fall Canfor stopped the hauling into their mills for a few weeks when conditions were good to be hauling. The log haulers will now have to make up for this with longer hours later this winter when the road conditions are a lot worse.

IMO blame the mills who refuse to work with the log haulers creating a more balanced delivery schedule taking advantage of times when road conditions are good. Or blame the provincial government for the stumpage rates that cause the mills to play this game.

16 hours a day or 60 hour a week is legal, but show me one log hauler that works less then 16 hours a day and I'll show you a log hauler that is no longer in business.

There is about 2-3 months a year that are not utilized and therefor are made up for when the season is on. That is the source of the driver fatigue IMO.

I agree with acrider. Some of these cowboys could use a little extra driver training. IMO this problem is evident on the highways as well as the logging roads.

Well --- IMO the editorial pretty much says it. There is far too much panic to get as much wood in to the mill as possible in the quarter where the stumpage is lowest, or at least lower than what they think its going to be in the next quarter. The loggers and the truckers are the pawns in this game, and the mills make the moves. When the mills don't want the wood, every excuse in the book is used to park their Contractors until they are ready to open the scales again, and from there on its every man for himself, because you have been parked for months, and now have to risk life and limb to try to do five or six months logging or hauling, in three. Every year we kill a few truckers in this insane ballet, and every year following we do the same thing all over again. There are far too many kids out there with no fathers because of this madness, and I believe its high time we did something about it.

It seems to me there's a solution here, and if it saves just one life, its cost will be nothing compared to the suffering borne by so many shattered families already, and those that don't realize they are about to do so.

Why can't we simply average all the stumpage rates, by species and qualities etc., of course, of the four quarters of the previous year, divide that into the total volume harvested by each mill in that year, multiply one figure by the other, and assess that particular mill that amount next March, or April. This should, in effect,eradicate "stumpage bingo", because the mill will eventually pay its fair share regardless, early in the next year, just like you and I do every year with our own taxes. Thusly, if the mill tries to do all its logging in a three month period where stumpage is lowest, it will eventually pay the difference anyway, come next March or April. Conversely, if the mill does most of its logging and hauling in, say, the highest stumpage quarter of the year it will get a REFUND at the end of the first quarter of the next year. Interest at a fair rate could be charged or paid depending on circumstance, to eliminate the Government being accused of using a mills money for free if they paid more than average assessment in a high quarter.

Suddenly, the panic would be pretty much pointless, because the mill would pay its fair share of taxes anyway, maybe just not right away. Now it could base its logging season on things lke the right weather conditions, or the immediate need for wood at the mill, or the right market conditions.

It seems to me the mills are making tidy profits regardless of lumber prices, duties, stumpage, etc., and maybe its time they gave something back to the little Guy risking his life out there to feed the mills, as well as himself and his family.

Am I way off base here?

acrider54 -- you are right about the radio being able to save lives, --- BUT IT CAN ALSO GET YOU OR SOMEONE ELSE KILLED - PRONTO !!!
One thing you NEVER do out there is drive solely by your radio !! It is a powerfull tool, and used correctly, can save your butt every day, but it is exactly that, --- just a tool, same as the throttle pedal, brake pedal, and steering wheel. The most valueable tool you have out there sit squarely right between your ears, and this is the one you should have engaged every minute you're hanging on to that steering wheel !

There are all kinds of unexpected things happening out there every minute, such as a hunter with no radio that has come out on the road between trucks, and is now boreing down on you with no indication he is there, or the Guy on the ATV or snowmobile doing the same thing. Its too late when he's under your wheels to be saying "where the hell did he come from" -- "no-one said anything about him on the radio" !

Radios are man-made contaraptions that break-down, go out of range constantly, get ignored through familiarity due to forever hearing the same calls day in and day out, and/or even mistaken calls or eroneous calls due to the caller being in unfamiliar territory. Keep in mind also that the huge bull moose you're bearing down on right around the next corner has never heard of a radio either, and will have to depend on YOU to save both your butts !!

Also how do you and I processs a call that comes in like "loaded and leaving Jake's loader on landing one" -- or "emty at Frenchies Hump" ?? Every regular driver out there knows exactly what's going on when they hear this, but the vistitor is a sitting duck until he figures this out !!

How do you think they did this in the day before radios ?? They drove with extreme care and caution, and used that tool between their ears to stay alive !!

Palomino well said. Its a wonder a politician like Pat Bell who is familiar with logging hasn't taken the lead on this.

I hope you've piched the smoothing out formula idea to him? It makes sense to me.

About three, ot four years ago, shortly after a Burns Lake mother of two lost her husband, and her kids their father, in an early spring logging truck crash, I knew I could stay silent no longer. This lady had asked publicly why, --- why is this still allowed to happen ?? Her children were ages 8 and 10 at the time I believe, but their ages are irrelevant, and she just wanted an answer as to why they were destined to suffer for the rest of their lives because of the madness out there on the roads every winter.

My heart went out to this lady, and I hoped I could do something in some small way to make a difference, so I decided to contact the then forest Minister, Mr. Mike DeJong with my proposal to average the stumpage system, and hopfully in some small way, bring some sanity back to making a living in the forest industry.

I still have all the emails I sent stored away, and I made sure Mr. DeJong knew I would (or could) not rest until my voice was heard.

Eventually, I did get a reply, indirectly from a Junior Minister as I recall, and you know what it was ??? --- that my proposal would definately work, but it would not allow the mills to manipulate their bottom line as effectively, and project their production costs as efficiantly months ahead !!!

Loosely translated (in my words), it read to me as follows:

We are fully aware mills are tweaking the system to their own financial benefit, but they are far too powerfull for us to mess with, so the system will have to stay as it is.

You see, under the present system, the mills can literally stuff MILLIONS of dollars of extra revenue in their pockets by manipulating the stumapge system to their advantage. No Government or anybody else for that matter is going to meddle with that "cash cow" without a helluva fight from those mills, --- and the Government knows it.

So the carnage continues, and the little Guy loses again, as always, and the families who lose their loved ones are far easier to sweep under the rug than an outraged sawmilling industry.

After all, the Government too, is doing pretty good raking in the dough from all this cash flow as well.

It'd be sort of like killing the golden goose now wouldn't it!