The Pilot Program

Good quality truck training schools are not doing as well as they once were, thanks to the budget quickie so-called schools. A good quality school can cost anywhere from $8,000 to $15,000. It's tough for a young guy or girl to come up with that kind of money. But this is interesting…did you know that there is no shortage of young people showing up to fork out around 20 thousand to become a pilot…and $80,000 to become a commercial pilot. Yet, it's interesting that, unlike in the trucking world, there a no bad or crooked quickie pilot schools.

Well, I thought I should talk to some pilot training schools and a pilot to see how they train and how they are monitored and learn about the training testing licensing. I have a flight instructor on with me from Manitoba, and after that, I will talk to a pilot who is known to you all. Let's see if we can learn anything from how they do things under the eagle eye of Transport Canada.

You'll never see a 737 flying next to school bus, or a family in an SUV. So why is safety in trucking less important than flight?

The Enforcement Province

There seems to be a lot of handwringing and anger about the scourge of bad poorly trained and sometimes fake licensed truck drivers on our highways…and the suggestions and strategies to fix the problems. There have been, as usual, plenty of disagreements about what needs to be done to make our highways safer. The one seemingly logical simple solution that obviously evades us is… ENFORCEMENT. Enforcing minimum training standards and enforcing verifiable testing and licensing. It's a bigger problem in Ontario than just about anywhere…but there is one province where it's not nearly as huge an issue.

I talked to my friend Benoit Therrien about how Quebec's system works to make highways safer. Benoit is a 20-year veteran driver and the owner and main host of the hugely popular Truck Stop Quebec radio station, on air and on line 24 hours a day.

Listen and comment.

Trucking journalist Jim Park and podcast creator Stan Campbell will discuss the proposed Red Seal idea for truck drivers on this TruckNewsTalk podcast. Anything that cleans up the crooked schools and suspect testing and licensing would be a move in the right direction. However, other ideas have been tried and failed. Are there options? We have a lot of questions. In addition, Stan has a crazy idea he thinks would solve the bad schools and suspicious licensing problems forever. It's sure to get dismissed by just about everybody. Let's just say...control is hard to surrender.

We invite you to please comment. We will pass on your comments and suggestions. Send email messages to stancampbell@outlook.com.