It really is time is it not, I wonder how many people know that as long as you hold a class AZ licence in Ontario you can instruct people how to drive a tractor trailer. No official instructor certification for some of the biggest and heaviest units on our highways.
In Ontario, when Mandatory Entry Level Driver Training (MELT) was signed off on by all the industry stakeholders, the TTSAO said we would sign off on it and support what was proposed with a caveat, the Government and the Ministry of Transportation would ensure instructor qualification and DZ MELT implementation would be on the table and dealt with in a year, that was 3 years ago. Many industry stakeholders have been pushing for instructor certification all this time. Yes, there are industry and Government round tables and way to much lip service being paid to date, nothing.
It saddens me, other groups and association that the Government and MTO continue to drag their feet on this. Road safety is suppose to be paramount with our Provinces leadership and it took a tragedy like like Humboldt incident to bring our industry incompetency to the front lines. Do we need another catastrophic incident to get something done?
The majority of the industry and stakeholder groups want properly developed instructor certification programs for the trucking industry. I will leave you all with a thought to ponder. Someone teaching a kid to drive a car at 16 MUST be certified and pass a course to be qualified but someone teaching someone to drive an18 wheeler does not need to be certified. Somethings not right, you be the judge.