Most BC carriers would take part in provincial training standard

LANGLEY, B.C. — It’s nearly unanimous. About 97 percent of truckers surveyed by the BC Trucking Association agree that a provincial driver-training program is a necessity.

The vast majority of respondents to BCTA’s Driver Training Program Survey say they’ll sign up for a non-mandatory, professional driver training standard proposed by the association and B.C. Trucking Human Resources Planning Committee.

The proposed driver-training standard includes an eight-week instructional component and a four-week unpaid practicum for class 1 drivers.

Fleets said an advantage to the training standard would
be to ‘try out’ new drivers before hiring them full time.

The program recently received approval in principle by the Industry Training Authority (ITA), the provincial agency that oversees the B.C. industry training and apprenticeship system.

The survey — which attempted to gauge industry support for the proposal as well as the number of companies that would be willing to hire program graduates who achieve “professional” status — was sent to members of the BCTA, the Northern B.C. Truckers’ Association, and the B.C. Ready-Mix Concrete Association.

Reasons for the respondents’ support varied: About 31 percent expecting the program to increase professionalism and driver competence; 23 percent felt that a class 1 licence on its own is insufficient for new drivers; and 16 percent felt that such a program would help solve the driver shortage.

About 68 percent said they would be willing to take on trainees. Some who indicated they would not said it was because of small company size or business downturns, or because their driver requirements are more specialized than the training standard.

Advantages to sponsoring trainees would be the opportunity to “try out” a new driver who may end up being a good company fit, the respondents said.

About 74 percent of the survey respondents would be willing to hire an entry-level driver after the 12-week program. The survey provided two possible measures for identifying when a program graduate could be considered professional: hours behind the wheel and kilometres driven. The majority of replies, about 65 percent, supported hours behind the wheel, with a total of 1,000 hours as the target.