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LETTER: Big rig trucks should stick to designated areas

By on March 14, 2018
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Editor,

In any other city, trucks must stay on specific routes and park in designated areas such as truck stops. Why?

  1. Noise: trucks are often left idling and use booming engine brakes.
  2. Stink: trucks smell like grease, diesel fumes, fuel and leave oil stains.
  3. Size: big trucks block views and driveways, are less maneuverable and have lots of blind spots, are hazardous to pedestrians and take up a lot of parking space.
  4. Weight: they tear up pavement while turning, leave grooves in the roads and create big potholes or washboards.
  5. Cargo: trucks carry dangerous goods, propane, fuel, environmental contaminants and waste products.

These are only a few reasons as to why trucks should not be allowed off a designated truck route unless they are delivering goods or bobtailing (driving a truck tractor without the trailer attached). Local resident truckers usually have a yard to park in or should have. The majority do not care about you, me or our community, only money and getting from point A to B.

MORE: LETTER: Merritt should cater to truck drivers
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City of Merritt aims to reduce truck traffic with directional signage

They leave urine bottles behind at rest stops and abuse product in public washrooms. Should we cater to trucks any differently than any other city? Only if you want to keep high property taxes, low property values, high insurance rates, constant road repairs, property and vehicle damage and lack of pedestrian safety.

Trucks made those potholes on Voght, not passenger vehicles. I live in a school zone, not a truck route, yet I see them daily at speeds over 30 km/h, not stopping at the 4-way, all because they are following a GPS blindly without proper planning or concern for an obvious residential neighbourhood and school zone.

Restricted zones and truck routes are there for many more reasons. Just because you don’t understand, or acknowledge, or agree with them, is not a good enough reason to just throw them out the window.

Darrel Brooks
Merritt

One Comment

  1. glen rutherford

    March 16, 2018 at 2:02 pm

    In other areas the big commercial vehicles have to use the right lane on highways, unless they are passing other trucs and the speed is lower for them. what this does is separates the trffic, slower vehicles can use the right lanes as well.

    this change would save a lot of lives on the coquihalla and the greyhounds should also use the truck lanes as they are carrying valuable goods, people without seatbelts.

    It would make the highway so much safer. Ive had trucks tailgating me in the snow and all sorts of conditions and the drivers are forced to drive according to the computers instead of making sensible decisions on road conditions, this is why they tailgate and throw pee bottles out the windows. If they stop at a rest area they loose points.. everything is monitored. If a trucker brakes too much to avoid tailgating or reduces his speed to compensate for other vehicles he looses points. It has created a very dangerous system for others on the roads and it doesn’t benefit the truckers, only the owners and shareholders in the trucking companies benefit.

    trucks should be in the right lanes at all times and drive at a reduced speed to reduce fuel conumption and pollution. big trucks aren’t safe if they are tailgating at 110 K.. this is way too common.. why the cops don’t ticket for this Ill never quite understand. Just easier to hand out seatbelt fines, that way they don’t have to go anywhere.

    Reply

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