A Markham transport truck driver faces drug smuggling charges after the RCMP seized 50 kilograms of suspected cocaine at the Blue Water Bridge near Sarnia earlier this month.

The driver was alone in the commercial vehicle crossing from the U.S. into Canada on Nov. 18 when he was directed by a Canada Border Services Agency officer for an inspection, the RCMP said Wednesday.

Border guards use mobile X-ray devices and sniffer dogs to check for any unusual cargo or modifications to trucks.

“During the examination, border services officers discovered an inconsistency in the weight of some of the boxes contained in the shipment,” an RCMP statement said.

“The boxes were examined and found to contain 50 packages of suspected cocaine, weighing approximately 50 kilograms total.”

In an interview, RCMP Sgt. Penny Herman said the suspected cocaine is being forensically tested.

Police had no estimate of the value of the cargo, where it originated or where it was destined.

Guo Bing Zhao, 52, has been charged with importation of a controlled substance and possession of a controlled substance for the purpose of trafficking.

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GUELPH, Ont. – With insurers reducing their risk exposure, and some exiting transportation altogether, many carriers have seen rising premiums and outright policy cancellations. But one Ontario carrier has bucked the trend, and slashed insurance premiums by high double digits this year.

Derek Koza, president and CEO of Wellington Group of Companies, operator of Wellington Motor Freight, told Today’s Trucking that his company took a strategic approach to reducing its insurance premiums. The company operates 85 vehicles, operating a regional fleet in the Toronto area, as well as serving the Toronto-Montreal corridor and Atlantic Canada. It also serves the U.S., but mostly by rail.

The company started as a broker about five years ago and ramped up its asset-based trucking operation last year when capacity was tough to secure. Wellington took a holistic approach to lowering its insurance costs, including some forward-thinking measures.

For one, drivers are all paid a salary.

“We are one of the few in the industry, where all our company drivers are salaried drivers,” Koza said. “The reason why we wanted to do that was to drive consistency for drivers, where there’s no message in the back of their head where it’s rush, rush, rush.”

Paying drivers a salary has resulted in a 95% retention rate, Koza said, and a waiting list of drivers looking to join the company.

“With retention and consistency, comes safety,” Koza said.

There are expectations for the drivers, of course. They must make themselves available five days a week for up to 60 hours. They’re paid overtime after 60 hours.

Whenever possible, Wellington offers dedicated lanes. Being familiar with the route allows for better trip planning and improved safety, the company found.

“We are getting into winter here and certain pockets in southwestern Ontario are going to be extremely windy, with lots of snow drifting. The drivers are anticipating that prior to entering into that zone,” said Koza.

Wellington is uncompromising when it comes to hiring standards. Koza said that’s because once you compromise your standards, it becomes habit-forming.

“You have to stay disciplined to the safety plan you put in place,” he said.

Wellington is up-front with its customers that drivers are expected to park when weather is bad.

“Every time there’s a snowstorm or heavy rain, we send out a message to our drivers reminding them that they and the general public are more important than any load they’re delivering,” said Koza.

Equipment is spec’d with active safety systems to support the driver and disc brakes. All reefers are seven years old or newer, dry vans are 10 years or newer, and trucks are five years or newer. Electronic logs are used, even by city drivers. All trailers are tracked by GPS, and telematics are used to identify incidents like hard braking and speeding violations.

Having developed a comprehensive safety plan, Wellington invited in its insurer to communicate the plan. It was already in the middle of the pack in terms of its premiums, not bad for a young fleet, but with room for improvement.

“We were nowhere near the highest and nowhere near the lowest,” said Koza. But even as a fledgling fleet, the company was granted a 21B fleet policy, allowing it to hire drivers without first having them vetted by the insurance company.

Koza didn’t want to publicly disclose the insurance premium savings the company now enjoys, but says the company was “rewarded handsomely” for its efforts.

“I’m not going to say it was an easy journey,” said Koza. “But it really is simple if you sit down, put together a plan, get the engagement of the team, and most importantly, stick with the plan.”

Even if new business is brought on or trucks are parked against the fence, Koza said it’s essential to not deviate from the plan. “You have to stay committed to the plan. You can’t take that sidestep and make that exception, because if you do, it’s going to continue to be a roller-coaster of exceptions going forward.”

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Commercial truck drivers with a medical marijuana licence are allowed to operate their vehicles with the drug in their system in Ontario as long as they’re not legally impaired, the auditor general’s annual report says.

The United States has no such exemption, nor does Transport Canada for flight crews and controllers, nor Metrolinx for its train and bus operators, Bonnie Lysyk reports.

Ontario also has no mandatory drug and alcohol testing for commercial truck drivers, auditors say.

Commercial truck traffic has increased by 10% over the past decade in Ontario and large buses and trucks were involved in 182,000 collisions, the report says.

“Ontario maintained higher fatality and injury rates than Canada as a whole and the United States in the majority of years between 2008 and 2017 when evaluating only commercial vehicles,” the report says.

The use of an important road safety tool — commercial vehicle inspections — fell by 22% between 2014-18 in part because they could not fill enforcement officer vacancies, the report says.

And in one of the more scarier findings, given recent high-profile accidents involving large vehicles, auditors noted flaws in commercial driver licensing and training.

Ontario is the only province that allows private carriers to test their own drivers for commercial licences, and they have a pass rate of 95% compared to 69% at DriveTest centres, the report says.

Companies that passed drivers that later went on to have higher-than-normal rates of accidents were allowed to keep testing.

Some private Motor Vehicle Inspection Stations that issue certificates that commercial vehicles are road worthy have been found involved in fraudulent activity like issuing certificates without actually inspecting the vehicle, the report says.

“An MVIS garage employed only one mechanic and was sent 4,000 inspection certificates in 2018 alone which is 76 times the average per mechanic,” the report found.

When brought to the Ministry of Transportation’s attention, it turned out that the mechanic had ordered 2,000 certificates — still well above the per-mechanic average — and was sent an extra 2,000 for free without ministry staff noticing, the report says.

Lysyk said that had the ministry maintained its previous level of inspections, auditors calculate that as many as 10,000 unsafe commercial vehicles and drivers would have been removed from Ontario roads.

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TORONTO, Ont. – A Canadian tech start-up is looking to electrify landing gear, and has developed a currently available adaptor to ease the job for drivers.

Omid Beik, founder of Enercs, first became aware of the demands of deploying landing gear when reading about the Humboldt Broncos bus crash, in which 16 people were killed following a collision with a semi.

“One person said these drivers, they work 14 hours a day, they’re exhausted. Then at the end of the day the have to crank landing gear. That was my first introduction to landing gear,” Beik said in an interview with Trucknews.com. Beik, who has a Ph.D and a masters in electric motors, felt “There has to be a better way to do it.”

He discovered it takes 100 lb.-ft. of torque to properly lower the landing gear.

“That is massive for any human being to operate,” he said.

Beik reached out to trucking fleets, which expressed support for a product that would make cranking the landing gear easier, as long as it was priced reasonably. Other products on the market cost US$675. So Beik invented an adaptor that fits on any electric impact wrench. The driver simply attaches the impact wrench (not included) to the adaptor and then can raise or lower the landing gear quickly at the press of a button.

It retails for $49.99 and is available today (orders currently must be placed via email, at sales@enercs.com).

But Beik has grander visions for the application and is currently working on an electric motor that will tap into the truck’s 12-volt power source. He has built a rare earth-free electric motor, which reduces cost significantly.

“Thirty to 50% of the price of the motor is the magnets, we eliminate that,” he explained.

The company now has five patents pending. Biek hopes to commercialize the electric system within a year, and is in talks with landing gear manufacturers to integrate. Eventually, as trucks become more automated, Biek feels autonomous landing gear will be required. But that brings challenges such as theft prevention, which the company addresses through use of an RFID tag assigned to a driver.

Work continues on the electric landing gear, with all the company’s manufacturing and development taking place in Concord, Ont.

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TORONTO, Ont.  – The charity devoted to helping truckers is now accepting donations as well as nominations for aid this holiday season.

The Truckers Christmas Group is hoping to raise $20,000, which will benefit 40 trucking families in the U.S. and Canada.

Based in Wichita, Kan., TCGO has raised $90,000 since it was formed by a group of truckers in 2008.

It all started with one driver wanting to donate an extra $500 he had to a family during Christmas.

“He didn’t know how to do it. So, a bunch of us stepped in, and said ‘Hey, we might as well help you out’. And then other people started to donate,” said Greg Manchester, director of public relations, and one of the five founders of the group.

It wasn’t until a few years later the organization was registered as a charity, he said.

Manchester, who has been working for Purolator for 34 years, is the only Canadian on the board of TCGO. Another Canadian, Shelley Uvanile-Hesch of Sharp Transportation, works as a volunteer.

The organization has so far helped 154 families ease the financial burden associated with the holiday season. In 2018, it delivered $8,000 to 16 families.

Manchester said the group has set the aid at a minimum of $500 per family because “we don’t want to give a thousand people one dollar”.

Since TCGO announced its 2019 campaign, people have been calling to donate and nominate, he said.

The group also accepts corporate donations in the form of gifts, which are then sold online.

This year, trucking’s top musicians are also helping the group raise funds.

The participants include Bill Weaver, Paul Marhoeffer, Taylor Barker, Mandi Jo Pinhierio, Jason Henley, Tony Justice, Ken Freeman and Keith Sampson.

“We are always hearing stories of drivers and their families who have fallen on hard times,” said country singer Justice.

“I am proud to be able to do my small part to help my brothers and sisters of the highway — and their families — to have a better and more blessed Christmas.”

The 2019 campaign started Nov. 21 and runs through Dec. 11. Funds will be dispersed to qualifying families a week before Christmas.

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DAWSON CREEK, B.C. – The response this past weekend in Dawson Creek, B.C., in support of the 18 Wheels of Christmas campaign was amazing.

That’s according to Chris Richards of Rosenau Transport, who organizes the yearly Christmas charitable event in the area. Richards said this year they were contacted by more agencies and groups looking for their assistance, so the campaign “stepped things up a few notches.”

Normally, 18 Wheels uses a single trailer and runs its event over a weekend with the goal of supporting one of the local food banks. But this year, with three food banks in Dawson Creek, the organization decided to up its game to three trailers, each in their own location and supporting each food bank.

“In total, with the help of dozens of community volunteers, we collected 63 pallets of food and over $4,300 in cash and corporate donations,” said Richards. “This is well over double our usual collection efforts from previous years.”

With a population of just over 12,000, Richards was overwhelmed by the generosity of his community, saying they “gave like a city of a million.”

“I cannot thank all of our volunteers enough,” he said, highlighting the assistance they received from the local Rotary Clubs, Air Cadets, as well as his colleague from Rosenau, Karen Brisebois. “The efforts put forth by everyone will ensure that our community will not need to go without this holiday season and beyond.”

The efforts of 18 Wheels was equally successful in Alberta, with events so far being held in Okotoks Nov. 15 and Calgary this past weekend.

It was the campaign’s 10th year at Okotoks Light Up, and with weather cooperating, donations flooded in more than expected.

“Everything we collected that evening in Okotoks goes to the Okotoks Food Bank,” said Colleen Nickel, who also works for Rosenau Transport and organizes 18 Wheels in the Calgary area.
Donations included pre-packaged food hampers, three full food collection boxes, and cash for additional items.

On Nov. 23, 18 Wheels was in Calgary at the Lake Bonavista Promenade, where the community has helped the cause since 2002.

“We are never disappointed with the involvement of the businesses and residents of this community,” said Nickel. “We gathered 12 full food bank collection boxes and will be delivering this to the Calgary Food Bank on Dec. 23.”