Driver shortage continues

Joe McWilliams
Lakeside Leader

A year ago, The Leader started counting heavy trucks on Hwy. 88, just to get an idea what sort of use that rapidly deteriorating road was getting.

The first count was Nov. 9, 2020. In a 15-minute window on the afternoon of that day, 22 big rigs went by – 10 of them log trucks and a dozen in the ‘other’ category.

This season’s first count didn’t take place until Nov. 24. The number of trucks was 21. Only six of them were log haul units. Seven were tanker trucks and eight others. At that rate, it’s just over 1,000 trucks in a 12-hour day. Unscientific, but it does illustrate that there’s a lot of hauling going on, and the shortage of qualified drivers that was in the news a year ago will still be the case.

In fact just last week, Global News did a story on it, reporting that “within a few years, Alberta will be short thousands of truckdrivers.”