Scott Watkins was born in Vancouver BC, in the spring of 1959. When he was six months old, his family bought a house and moved to North Surrey, BC. He attended Princess Margaret Senior Secondary High School and after graduating in 1977 he took a pre-apprentice course in heavy duty mechanics at Pacific Vocational Institute.

This is his story:

My interest in trucks started about the time I began to crawl. My Dad was a long haul truck driver and I knew that the familiar sound of the big diesel engine outside meant that Dad was home. In my very early years he ran from Vancouver to Toronto, for Gill Interprovincal Line Ltd. By the time I was 8 Years old Dad was working for Mexicana Reefer Services hauling to California and I would ride shotgun whenever I could. My Christmas and Spring breaks and most of my summers were spent in his truck. My butt probably saw a million miles in the jump seat beside my Dad, and by the time I graduated I’d seen far more country than most kids my age.

Some of the companies that Dad worked for wouldn’t allow passengers in their trucks but that didn’t stop us. Like the other drivers, Dad would load in the yard and then pull out to park on the street where he would load whatever gear he was taking with him from his car. I would often be part of that gear. This made it kind of exciting as I would have to hit the deck whenever we passed any of our company’s trucks on the road.

My dad was my hero and I was very young when he started teaching me all the things that I would need to know about trucking. When I was eight years old we lived in a subdivision that only had one road in. When we’d get home my Dad would back the truck around the corner and make sure it was straight for me then he would have me slowly back it down the street. There he would be standing on the running board telling me which way to turn. This was a very quiet street and he always told me that if there ever was a problem to reach down and pull the engine kill switch.

As I grew up he would have me move the truck at every opportunity. I remember being on the I-5 in California when he turned to me asked if I wanted to drive. I hesitated and asked, “Are you sure?” He looked me in the eye and said, “I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t trust you.”

Dad passed away when I was only twenty-one. I’ve never experienced anything as tough as that. I lost my father and best friend all at the same time.

In 1978, the day after my nineteenth birthday, I got my Class 1 license and I’ve been trucking ever since. I’ve met a lot of people in this business, some good, some not so good. The good ones I have kept close to me, the bad ones I try to forget.

The first job I had was working for a company called FHC Transportation. We were licensed for two provinces and five western states hauling produce and building products. When you’re young with no experience it’s hard to find a decent job, but I learned a lot from my boss Johnny Stinn.

The first truck I owned was a 1962 Freightliner Cab over, with a 335 Cummins, 4x4 transmission, 245 inch wheelbase, rubber block suspension and Armstrong steering. What a great truck to learn on. Unfortunately I didn’t have it that long before I was in a serious wreck.

We’d haul apples from the Okanogan over to the Vancouver Island, then we’d load cedar shakes at Ucluelet on the west coast of the Island, bound for California. Most of the return loads that we brought back from California were produce.

The Hope Princeton highway at that time was a real piece of work but the road to Ucluelet was even worse. It was so narrow that a forty foot trailer would dog track half way into the oncoming lane on a left hand corner, or if you were up against a bluff you had to swing into the oncoming lane to stop from becoming part of the scenery. Needless to say, if you met anyone on a corner, they would do their best impersonation of a deer in the headlights.

But it wasn’t either of these roads on our regular run that got me - it was on a side trip. It was the 17th of May when Dad and I, with a load of frozen fish, were heading East between Prince Rupert and Terrace at a spot they call the hole in the wall. This section of road was built on the edge of a big rock bluff and it’s pretty well straight down to the Skeena River. It was a beautiful spring day and I was just taking my time cruising along, enjoying the scenery. I came around the right hand part of the “S” turn to go around the bluff but when I got out to the point and tried to make the left turn the truck wouldn’t turn. I looked in my mirrors in time to see the trailers going over and all of a sudden we were down the bank and in the river. The water was incredibly cold and running high, fueled by the spring run off. I was completely out of air when I finally broke the surface.  I quickly looked around for my Dad and I saw him pop up near the shore where he managed to crawl up on the rocks. It was lucky that he came up there because he couldn’t swim a stroke.

The current pulled me away from shore and remembering my swimming lessons as a kid I swam with the current not against it until I ended up on a sandbar. I guess in a way I was lucky that the water was that cold because I found out later that I had broke my collar bone, shoulder and some ribs not to mention the ruptured spleen. Someone threw me a rope and hauled me back to shore and then the ambulance took us to the hospital for a ten day visit. Dad managed to get away with only a broken leg.

The reefer had an air pocket in it which helped it float long enough to drift to a place where it could be recovered but the truck was a different story. Apparently the spot where we went in is very deep so they couldn’t find the truck. Ten years later it finally surfaced ten miles down river. We never did find out what caused the wreck although we had just changed a front right steering tire a day or two before and it may have gone again.

After six months of recuperating I was back in the saddle! The next truck I bought was 1973 International 4200 conventional with a 350 8V 71 T Detroit diesel with a 13 speed and 38,000 lbs rear ends.

Trucking became a lot more fun and profitable in 1980, when I started work for Vern Kross at Pacific Freightways. I had the Cadillac of jobs back then, hauling containers back and forth to Seattle. We also did tractor service for other companies, such as Canadian Freightways, Johnston Terminals, Commercial Truck and Crane, and Van Kam Freightways. These were very good times with lots of work, lots of money and lots of friends.

In 1985 I bought my 1983 FLC 120 Freightliner. This was and still is my favourite truck of all. It had a 400 big cam 3 Cummins with a 15 speed and 40,000 lb. diffs.

As I said, in the early 80’s the container business was good and we were paid well but nothing lasts forever and hauling containers for a decent rate was no exception. It started to change around 1985 and it’s gone downhill ever since. The change came about quite quickly as the volume through the ports increased and new companies came in each undercutting the other. Of course the only way companies could undercut each other was by cutting back on what they paid the truckers. The result has been that a once stable industry has lost it’s credibility in the world market due to the strikes and shutdowns that we have seen over the last few years.

The next stop was Sauder Transport, an in-house carrier for Sauder Industries. Sauder manufactured doors, paneling, moulding, and vinyl siding as well as handling many other products. It was our job to distribute the products around B.C., Alberta, Washington, Oregon, and California. We also had to pick up the raw materials to feed the manufacturing plants. I made a good living there for many years until they started to down size by closing some divisions and moving others out of the lower mainland. Over the years Sauder Transport had grown to a fairly good sized company but after the cutbacks there were too many trucks for the amount of in-house work. To keep the trucking side going they started doing more and more outside work which meant the rates went down. The company attitude was changing quickly also, so it looked like the perfect time to say goodbye.

It was time to make a fresh start so I talked to some of the people I had met back when I worked for Pacific Freightways and they got me started at ISL Transport. I pulled containers back and forth from Vancouver to Tacoma Washington, as well as doing local work for them for about six years. Corporate politics finally got the best of this job and it was time to move on again.

I settled in at Elliott Transport where Bill Elliott and I pooled our resources on one of Bill’s many ventures. Bill and Debbie Elliott are awesome people to know both inside and outside business life. Bill hauled empty plastic bottles into Nalley’s under the Knight Street Bridge in Vancouver. I joined Bill after they had closed that plant and opened one in Tacoma Washington. We’d haul empty bottles down, drop the trailer, and backhaul salad dressing for Puget Sound Truck Lines.

When Gordon Trucking undercut Puget Sound, taking away our back haul, we approached the shipper to see if we could get the contract ourselves. As it happened a supervisor overheard the conversation and not wanting to deal with a small outfit, told the shipper to give the whole contract to Gordon’s.

Elliott Transport was still handling the overload for Overwaitea which kept us fairly busy, but we always had to wait for the phone to ring. We were never too sure how much work we would have and I needed more security than that so I moved on.

I dropped in at Protrux Systems to see some old friends and I found my self being talked into hauling curtain trailers around again. After a while it seems that my ambition ran out - I guess I couldn’t see myself doing that forever so I found myself an old flat deck trailer and went to work for Bob Doiron at Five Star Transport. This was a pretty good job running back and forth to Seattle and Tacoma, with the odd run to Portland.

Work was fairly steady hauling building products south and containers north. I had visions of staying there for a long while, so I upgraded my trailers. Unfortunately Bob had different plans. He decided to sell the company and retire. The handful of guys that worked there carried on with the new owner, but with new owners come new ideas. I found myself working for a company that I probably wouldn’t have gone to work for in the first place so again I moved on.

Pete Confortin at Roadstar Transport asked me if I would be Interested in running northern California so I found myself running south again.

Crossing the border can be interesting but once in a while you just have to take your hat off, shake your head, bite your tongue and admire the system.  I turned in my paperwork at the old US customs building early one morning where the guy processed it and then told me to have a seat. He went outside and searched my truck and trailer and then he asked me to back my truck up to the loading dock at the rear of the building so they could search my load. After they were done searching my load the officer told me to return inside because they were going to search my truck and trailer all over again. I was searched three times that trip! And they say they’re understaffed…..

I was happy and adjusting to the long haul again, but that happiness was short lived. My old 1983 Freightliner had been a great truck but she was telling me that there weren’t too many miles left in her motor. She was always dependable, and in eighteen and a half years she only ever left me sitting on the side of the road twice but it was time to put her out to pasture.

I still have her and I pull her out of the shop every year to go to the B.C. Big Rig Weekend in Mission but her commercial days are over. One day I’m hoping to buy a 5th wheel travel trailer and show my wife Janet some of those far off places that we’ve talked about. 

I met my wife Janet when we were 17 years old. We met at the restaurant where she worked as a waitress. We dated for five years then we got married on July 24th 1982. On April 8th 1985 our daughter Karly was born.  Two years later on November 29th 1987 our son Richard was born. Karly will soon be 21 and she is pursuing a business career while Richard is 18 and he’s started a small business polishing aluminium on trucks. He says that when he turns 19 he’s going to get his class 1 license and following in both his dad’s and granddad’s foot steps.

I don’t know what had gotten into me but when I retired my ’83 I bought a newer truck and soon found myself pulling Super B’s! Maybe it was the shock of having to retire my old truck, but it was like I had been hit by an idiot stick. This wasn’t the direction that I wanted to be going, and this wasn’t the truck. It was time to settle down and enjoy life again. 

In June of 2004 I started working for Wings motor cartage, covering 4 provinces and 13 states. I put on a lot of miles now and see a lot of different country. We are a LTL freight carrier so the loads are always different. In November of 2005 I bought a 2006 Freightliner Classic Condo with a 515 horse Detroit, eighteen speed and 40,000 lb. differentials. I figure if I’m going to see the continent then I’m going to see it in style.

KICK YOU WHILE YOU’RE DOWN…

A few years ago I loaded with lumber in a little town west of Salem Oregon. As I was heading out of town I stopped at their one and only traffic light. When the light turned green, I started to go, and there was a small thump and then nothing. I tried a few things but still nothing happened. As luck would have it there were two local cops standing at a gas station on the right shoulder. I approached them and told them I had a mechanical problem but, since I was on a slight incline, if they watched the traffic I would roll the truck back out of the way.

One officer stopped traffic as the other one guided me back. The one officer must have had a relative that owned a tow truck because he called for a tow truck right away. The other officer wanted to make sure that he’d get paid that week because he asked for my licence to see if I owed any money to the state. Like I didn’t have enough problems at the time…

 Things that make you go hmmm…

Anyone that has traveled Highway 1 west of Golden B.C. lately has noticed that the government is building a new scale and inspection facility. This new scale is long overdue. It will be nice not to have to drive through pot holes to get to the scale platform. What bothers me is, when the decision was made on the location of the scale, no consideration was given to truck drivers. If you are given an out of service notice way out there it will cost an arm and a leg to get a service vehicle out or even have a part delivered.

While we’re on the topic of the government not caring about truckers; what about highway #1 from the BC/Alberta border to Kamloops? The Trans-Canada Highway through this section is a disgrace. Considering the amount of traffic that travels over this piece of road you would think that you would see something more than a Goat trail. Its 2006, the government should stop dragging its rear end and build a decent road that doesn’t compromise safety and travel.

I’ve been in the trucking business for 28 years now and some days I complain, but I keep driving.  The truth of the mater is I like driving a truck. Despite a bad accident, getting shorted on my pay checks now and then, and over the years having to listen to a song and dance from anybody and everybody who think they’re somebody; I couldn’t or wouldn’t want to do anything else. It hasn’t always been a pleasant drive down a nice paved road. There’ve been days when you wondered how you were going to make your next mortgage payment or put groceries on the table. Worrying how many more miles that tired old engine will pound out for you does nothing more than shorten your own mileage expectations.  As sick as it sounds, I’ve always found that washing my truck was very therapeutic. I can remember one time Janet was hanging out the window at six in the morning asking, “What are you doing? Do you know what time it is?”

I can’t count how many times I stayed up all night to deliver somebody’s load of freight, with never a mention of thanks but the long and short of it all is that it’s got me where I am today, and most of it’s paid for.

Maybe I should have listened to my Mom and kept going to school to learn a trade, I guess I just couldn’t hear her over the hum of the tires.