Hank Kyle is anxious to train and instruct anyone interested in becoming a short or long-haul semi-driver. “We teach Class 1 and Class 3 drivers to drive trucks now that the government has mandated that you can’t try and get a Class 1 license unless you have attended and obtained a certified document from a driving school,” says Kyle.
The restrictions and regulations come after the Humboldt crash that took place on April 6, 2018, after 29-year-old Jaskirat Singh struck a northbound coach bus killing 16 people and injuring 13. Travelling at a speed of approximately 100 km/h, the semi-truck driver had failed to yield at a flashing stop sign at the intersection of Highway 35 and Highway 335 near Armley, Sask. Most of the deceased and injured were players from the Humboldt Broncos junior hockey team.
Kyle owns and operates Accent Driving School, one mile west of Highway 1 and Highway 83 junction at Virden, and says these restrictions have been Canada-wide for about three years now. His assistant and qualified instructor for these classes is Brian Grenier from Sinclair. Brian has been working alongside Kyle for about a year.
“By the end of this year, there will be an opening for about 30,000 drivers in Canada,” adds Kyle. He says there are not enough people wanting to get into the industry and because of the incident with the Humboldt accident, the upcoming drivers need to be fully trained and certified to be on the highway.
Brandon, Portage La Prairie, Winkler and Winnipeg also offer these driving schools “The potential drivers have to spend 40 hours in the classroom and 41 hours in the yard performing pre-trips, backups, coupling and uncoupling and driving in the truck with a certified instructor.”
Kyle adds there are vocational schools also that teach 244 hours of learning in which there is a lot more training involved in that length of time. There’s government funding available for it as well.
“I have been working as a Class 1 driving instructor for 21 years and as of February this year, we opened up our own school,” says Kyle.
“We have had great success with our students so far,” adds Grenier. The ages are mostly between 18 and 50. They both say they normally don’t see people over 50 coming into to learn the driving techniques.
Kyle says in this part of the world everything is seasonal and most people seem to be too busy for summer training but in the winter months they are full all the time. “We have three trucks and three trailers now that we use for training.”
