Most folks born in the 1970s or earlier will probably remember the smash television hit, CHiPs. The show followed the adventures of two California highway patrol officers as they kept state highways running safely and smoothly. If you didn’t get a chance to experience it then – don’t fret – you can get a sense of that super seventies magic here (you’re welcome). Did you know that BC also had its own highway patrol enforcement? Not many folks do....
We’ve introduced better chain-up regulations for commercial vehicles, which will provide more clarity for professional drivers this winter. That means safer roads, too. The changes come in the wake of one of our worst winters for highway closures. Unprepared commercial trucks caused 41 highway closures because they were either poorly equipped or totally unequipped with chains. In some cases, this was due to the driver’s inability to install the chains properly. Loss of traction in winter conditions leads to...
As winter weather begins to make its way across BC, impacting our driving conditions with snow, ice, rain, fog, etc., it’s always best to be prepared with a safety plan. And those plans are ready for winter. The Shift into Winter resource website (for all your “ready for winter driving” needs) has released a new document called, Winterizing Your Safety Plan: Information for Commercial Carriers. This is great information to know and follow up on because, as an employer...
We sometimes get the question: what kinds of inspections do commercial vehicles have to go through to ensure they are operating safely? It’s a great question, especially since the way CVSE (Commercial Vehicle Safety and Enforcement) carries out inspections has evolved over the years. The most notable change is increasing mobile inspections and using technology to help focus inspections on commercial vehicles that need them. So, how does this play out? Then… Well, looking back 15 years, all commercial...
What’s the flattest route to drive across BC, if you’re taking a road trip, and bringing your accommodation with you? We in BC tend to take our mountainous terrain for granted and those glorious summits somehow become a backdrop to our everyday life. But for less familiar travellers of our province, those snow-capped peaks can be a little intimidating, especially if you drive an RV or fifth wheel, or your vehicle struggles going uphill. That’s why it shouldn’t be...
We received a lot of positive feedback after sharing Part 1 of the Wanted off the Road poster series. Well, our Commercial Vehicle Safety and Enforcement (CVSE) team continues to keep BC from turning into the Wild West by rounding up more vehicles travelling the roads despite serious violations. We picked out a few of the more interesting examples for a follow up poster series in order to help you understand what types of dangerous situations our CVSE team...
Sometimes, it can be a dog eat dog world out there, and that seemed to be the case for five pups caught in the chaos of this summer’s BC wildfire in the Cariboo area. When a wildfire evacuation order was issued for Williams Lake this summer, five furry pups found themselves stuck in between a rock and a hard place. Their family had children who needed to be evacuated which meant there wasn’t room for the pups to tag...
In 2017, the wildfires that ravaged the interior of BC were the worst our province has ever seen. More than 1,200,000 hectares of the province were impacted by wild fires – surpassing the 1958 record of 856,000 hectares. At the peak of the emergency – thousands of people were evacuated from their homes, many vital sections of our transportation network were closed and a thick blanket of smoke hung across our province – giving us all some perspective of...
