Photo: KTW file

Commercial trucks travelling along Highway 5A south of Kamloops.

A Kamloops city councillor is leading the charge in a call for increased testing for commercial truckers — a motion that garnered strong support among other regional officials.

Delegates at this month’s Southern Interior Local Government Association convention voted in favour of a recommendation to take a closer look at training standards for commercial truck drivers. The motion was put forward by Kamloops Coun. Bill Sarai and the Thompson-Nicola Regional District.

“It’s no secret that there have been quite a number of accidents in a number of years,” Sarai told delegates.

Sarai said he wasn’t looking at laying blame with his resolution, but wanted to see the province look at why the crashes are occurring — and why incidents appear to increasingly involve large transport trucks.

He said he’s been working with the Western Professional Truckers Association who have come up with some recommendations, one of which has to do with driver testing.

Sarai said while changes have been made to training, the provincial written test hasn’t changed in about a decade.

“I think we have to look at that, and the province has to look at that,” he said.

“If we don't push for this, our highways that we travel on with our children and our loved ones is continually going to be dangerous, and we need to know why, and we deserve to see what improvements the province can do, whether it's enforcement, whether it's more training, whether it's more strict regulation.”

Sarai’s resolution recommended asking the provincial Ministry of Transportation and Transit to investigate whether commercial transport driver training standards are satisfactory and rigorous.

It also recommends the ministry reports publicly on enforcement actions taken against commercial transport trucks by RCMP and the Commercial Vehicle Safety and Enforcement branch, among other agencies.

Wildfire, rezoning

The driver training recommendation was one of several Kamloops or TNRD-sponsored resolutions adopted by SILGA. These resolutions will be put forward for consideration at this year's Union of B.C. Municipalities convention, and pushed to provincial and federal decision-makers.

Delegates approved a pair of wildfire-related TNRD resolutions, including one calling for a policy allowing residents to carry out FireSmart principles on a prescribed amount of Crown land.

Tricia Thorpe, TNRD director, said despite a “fabulous job” of FireSmarting their own properties, the Venables Valley community near Ashcroft lost homes to the Shetland Creek wildfire last summer.

“Unfortunately, where homes were lost in the community was primarily adjacent to unmitigated Crown lands,” she said.

“The spirit of this resolution is not to involve heavy equipment, but to allow homeowners adjacent to Crown lands to do basic FireSmarting such as cleaning up debris from the forest floor and removing tree branches within two metres from the ground.”

A second TNRD-sponsored resolution called for legislation requiring insurance providers to send a letter outlining their rationale when denying wildfire coverage for rural residents. This was also adopted by SILGA members.

SILGA representatives were also in favour of a resolution put forward by Coun. Nancy Bepple asking for the province to change its rezoning application process for properties near highway intersections.

Bepple’s resolution stated the ministry of transportation must currently give its approval for these types of rezoning applications — which can take “many months.”

She suggested the province remove the ministry approval requirement for minor rezoning requests — those where new development would generate less than 100 new vehicle trips during peak hours.

Photo: Ty Lim / The Merritt Herald

Merritt Mayor Mike Goetz addresses SILGA representatives on Wednesday, April 30.