TORONTO- In September 2014 Ontario’s Ministry of Transportation reviewed all 164 truck road test routes in the province and found all but four compliant. That’s a compliance rate of 97.4 percent, which the ministry quickly upped to 100 percent.

The road tests became subject to investigation after a Toronto Star article criticized that applicants for commercial vehicle licences were not taken on expressways during their road tests, as required by provincial legislation.

Ontario Minister of Transportation Steve Del Duca has been outspoken about bringing mandatory driver training for new truck drivers and said mandatory training and competency testing will “help deal with the crisis that we have upon us with a shortage of drivers, and it will provide security to those who have made transport trucking their chosen career.” Mandatory driver training would be a North American first.

Review’s findings

The ministry’s investigation quickly ruled that 109 out of 164 (66.5 percent) truck road test routes in Ontario were complaint. The ministry requested more details about the other 55 routes, including compliance with the rule that applicants are taken on a 100 km/hr expressway or an appropriate 80 km/hr substitute.

Part of what’s legally required of a truck road test is that the driver is taken on an expressway, or if one is not nearby, taken to a section of highway with a minimum speed limit of 80 km/hr or a ministry approved alternative of equal difficulty. Trouble was that recent changes to speed limits impacted some road test routes in Ontario. Before the changes, some of the routes where truck drivers were road tested had a speed limit of 80 km/hr, but were reduced to 70 km/hr, making them non-complaint with road testing standards.

Well, the ministry investigated and found that of the remaining 55 routes, 51 (or 92.7 percent) were compliant. That left only four routes (2.4 percent) non-complaint and those are no longer in use.

Recommendations

Despite the high rate of compliance, the ministry report made seven recommendations.

The most notable ones are:

1. In 2015, the ministry will consult with its partners to develop mandatory entry-level commercial training for truck drivers, leading to changes and enhancements to commercial road testing;
2. Ministry officials will physically drive a sample of the test routes each month to ensure compliance with ministry standards and policy requirements;
3. By the end of 2015, road test trucks will have GPS-enabled tablets and will be monitored by the ministry to ensure compliance.

You can read the full ministry report here.