STRICT NEW RULES meant to make high mountain highways in BC safer may have missed the point.
Much smaller vehicles will now be required to use chains in lieu of winter-rated tires, and larger vehicles will be mandated to use more chains.
Sounds good for the tire chain-making industry, but what wasn’t clear from the province’s news release was how many of the vehicles covered by these new rules actually caused the safety problems of the past.
It did say 33 of the 35 extended closures of the Coquihalla Highway last year involved commercial trucks.
Not all of them were caused by the commercial trucks, but of the incidents that were, many involved truck drivers not even putting on their chains.
You only have watch a few episodes of Highway Thru Hell on Discovery Channel to know truckers not putting on their chains is a common theme.
So it’s not drivers who are chaining up who are typically causing the problems; it’s the ones who aren’t complying with the rules already in place.
Making new rules will just add to the list rule-breakers will ignore.
Why do they do it?
It’s a mixture of lack of training and experience on high mountain highways and the incredible pressure drivers are under to get their cargo to its destination on time.
Pulling over to apply chains is just time some operators don’t believe they have.
The expansion of the Zopkios chain-up area and the new chain-up rules this week show the successive Liberal and NDP governments recognize there is a problem on the Coquihalla.
But neither has done what it takes to stop it.
We’ll see plenty more extended closures this winter, and a good portion will be caused by truckers who don’t chain up.
The province needs to bare its enforcement teeth and put the fear of God into these operators.
Here’s one suggestion to do that: repeat offenders get banished to the Fraser Canyon.
The Trans Canada through the canyon is a lower elevation road with less dramatic weather changes.
If you’re going to show a pattern of being unsafe anyway, you might as well do it on a road where there is a decreased chance of hitting slick road conditions.
It won’t rid the Coquihalla of safety hazards and extended closures, but more stringent enforcement might make things just a litte bit better.
