Certify logging truck drivers, says safety ombudsman

B.C.'s forest safety ombudsman says the provincial government should introduce a certification program for log haulers, to ensure that only trained, qualified people are driving the big trucks.

Roger Harris saidcompanies are so short of logging truck drivers, they're hiring people they would never have considered in the past.

He said the employers call it "putting meat in the seat."

In his first report, released Wednesday, Harris recommends that the B.C. Forest Safety Council work with the Insurance Corporation of B.C. to develop a provincewide certification program.

"If the new truck drivers of the future are going to be coming directly off the street, we can't be having them just run through a basic Class 1 and find themselves on the top of a mountain the next day.

"We need to make sure that, depending on the application of the vehicle they're going to drive, they're actually trained to the competency that gets them there."

Harris is a former logging contractor and Liberal MLA.

He was hired as forest safety ombudsman because of the record number of deaths in the industry in B.C. in 2005.

The death toll dropped last year, but Harris said there is still a crisis in recruiting and training forest workers, which is reflected in the title of his report, "Not Out of the Woods."