Logging industry records first truck fatality of 08 in BC

Another logging truck driver was killed in northern B.C. last week. It's the first log truck fatality of 2008, after a 14-month gap of such incidents, Canadian Press (CP) reports. Fort St. James RCMP say the driver of the loaded logging truck was killed in a collision with an empty logging truck.

The incident is still under investigation and the name of the truck driver was not been released.

More than 30 logging truck drivers and other forestry drivers have been killed in the northern B.C. interior since 1995.

The trucking and logging industries have made a concerted effort over the last year to examine the problem of trucking-related accidents.

Forestry related deaths in B.C.'s northern interior have been steadily falling in recent years, but trucking injuries and fatalities are still notably higher.

In an attempt to reduce the high number of trucking-related injuries and among log haulers in the region, WorkSafe B.C. proposed a series of changes to provincial safety regulations.

MaryAnne Arcand, head of the Forestry Trucksafe Program for the B.C. Forest Safety Council, reflected that there had been no log truck deaths in the North for more than year. ??"You realize we're never going to get it down to zero, but still ... it's not good," she said. Source