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...
Disappointed… and worried. That basically sums up how we felt when our Commercial Vehicle Safety and Enforcement (CVSE) officers reported how often drivers break the Slow Down Move Over law during roadside traffic stops on BC highways. Just how often are drivers speeding and/or failing to move into the far lane while passing vulnerable officers on the side of the highway? Well, according to CVSE, it seems like all the time. We had to find out exactly what was...
Warning! Don’t let spring play an April Fools’ prank on you. Roadside signs state passenger vehicles are required to have winter tires, and commercial trucks must carry chains, on most BC highways between October 1 and March 31. However, that doesn’t mean winter tires and chains are never needed beyond those dates. Sometimes spring lets Old Man Winter outstay his welcome, especially on high elevation routes such as the Coquihalla. Professional truck drivers who travel BC’s high mountain passes...
“I was in a hurry.” That was the excuse a Vancouver Island driver gave when one of our CVSE officers stopped him on the Malahat for driving with a mere “porthole” of snow cleared from his windshield. The officer issued the driver a $368 fine and didn’t let him continue driving without clearing all the snow off his vehicle. When we tweeted the photo, many of you were shocked: What’s worse, this isn’t just a one-off occurrence. Surrey RCMP...
This blog was last updated FEBRUARY 2018 Our 170 BC Rest Areas are the perfect spot to refresh and recharge before heading out on the highway, and they are about to get a whole lot better. Since the beginning of 2016, we’ve been working closely with the BC Trucking Association on the BC Highway Rest Area Survey and report. We wanted to get the voice of the trucking industry – what they like and what they don’t like –...
