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Unsafe Is Unacceptable
MaryAnne Arcand
“LOADED at 62....or am I
empty?”
by MaryAnne Archand, Director, Forestry TruckSafe and Northern
Initiatives
Radio calling procedures for hauling and driving in BC’s forests
have become more and more confusing over the past few years;
especially in the areas affected by the mountain pine beetle.
We have a whole range of calling procedures, “rules of the road”,
and directions that are confusing the heck out of forestry drivers
and other road users. In many places, the vehicles heading
out of the bush, back towards a highway, would call “loaded”; but
in these days of two-way hauling, the vehicle might be empty or
loaded either way. Some places call “in” and “out”, but in to
where and out of what? Others say “north” and “south”, but
how many roads stay straight in one direction? And then there’s
“up” and “down”. Ok, so I’m up the Kluskus, out on the Blue,
south on the 2600, I have a load on, but I’m going in as an
“empty”.... confused yet?
This confusion has been a contributing factor in many crashes on
resource roads, and is going to get a lot of attention at the
inquest into a trucker’s death near Mackenzie that is going to take
place in Prince George next month. We need to find a way to
get some consistency on this “tool” that is used by thousands of
forestry workers every day as one of their safety mainstays.
There are so many frequencies and channels being used in the
bush that Industry Canada has lost all count of who is using what.
And there are so many vehicles calling on some of them, especially
on the extremely busy multiple-industry use roads in the north,
that there’s only room for one way calling. Trying to track
everybody, and get your own calls in, is extremely distracting, and
after a while it becomes white noise. When guys want to chat, they
switch channels, because in most places chatting isn’t allowed on
the road channel. But when they do that, they’re not listening to
the road channel. And then, of course, there’s the “Knowledge
Network” (LADD channels).
Industry Canada is undertaking a major overhaul of the resource
road radio channel system. They say the change is needed because
the recent peak and increasing diversity of resource activity on
BC’s 650,000 kms of resource roads has strained the existing
system, leading to a number of problems including confusion and
misinformation on what road channels are in use and where, such
as:
- too many
different radio channels in use
- channels are
not exclusive to resource road use, often resulting in interference
to safety services and other users
- some resource
companies that operate these roads appear to be unclear on the
process to inform Industry Canada what channels are in use and
where
- vehicles are
using radio-assisted roads without having the right channels
programmed in their radios
The solution Industry Canada has come up with is to identify 35
radio channels to be used exclusively for Resource Roads in BC,
which will be identified by a RR designation, which will be the
same all over the province. So for vehicles moving around to meet
the demands of industry, no matter where they go, they’ll have the
resource road safety channels programmed into their
radios.
Pilots are planned this year for the Vancouver Island/Sunshine
Coast, and for the Tumbler Ridge area. Stay tuned for further
details. In the meantime, Industry Canada has issued a one-pager
explaining the basics and what it’s going to mean to radio users.
You can get a copy by emailing arcand@bcforestsafe.org or any
one of the 4 District offices of Industry Canada princegeorge.district@ic.gc.ca
or surrey.district@ic.gc.ca
or
Kelowna.district@ic.gc.ca or
Victoria.district@ic.gc.ca
or go on the BC Forest Safety Council website, www.bcforestsafe.org
and click on Forestry TruckSafe. For those of you who don’t
do email (and good on ya!), call 1-877-324-1212 and we’ll fax or
mail you a copy.
Keep on truckin’, and remember, Unsafe is Unacceptable.
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