The first one appeared just minutes out of Winnipeg on Highway 75, a spring water bottle filled with urine, glowing gold in the sun.
Twenty-eight -- count 'em -- 28 bottles of urine littered the roadside along a 35-kilometre stretch from Winnipeg to Ste. Agathe. Some half-buried in the dirt, others in the ditches on the edge of the cut grass. Pepsi bottles. Dasani water bottles. Lipton iced tea bottles. Bottles with tattered labels, some with cracked lids oozing liquid, many deformed from the impact of being tossed to the curb.
Selena Hinds holds up a discarded bottle filled with urine.
"Piss jugs? I got six of them in my truck now," said trucker Gordy Thomson of Wallaceburg, Ont. during a rest break at a Headingley area truck stop, on his way to Atlanta with a load of Manitoba french fries.
"At least I am responsible. I always wait until I get to a BFI garbage bin before I throw them out."
The stinky bottles are a new low for litter -- and proof of the intense pressure on the trucking industry.
On the drive to the lake this long weekend, motorists would be advised to keep one eye on the ditches and the other on the truck coming down the road.
Jim Berezowski of Manitoba Infrastructure and Transport, who has 20 years' experience at highway maintenance, said the problem started to intensify on major highways around Winnipeg in 2002.
"It's been pretty consistent since the increase to the truck traffic in Manitoba," Berezowski said.
These days long-distance hauling means many nights away from home and long, long hours on the road. For the most part, it's only when the odometer is clicking away that a trucker's -- and a trucking company's -- bank account grows. Drivers need to make good time, and they only have so many hours a day to get the job done. In Canada, that's a maximum of 13 hours a day behind the wheel, on duty no more than 14 hours, but delays at loading docks and border crossings since 9/11 squeeze journeys into shorter time frames.
Some truckers choose making a living over taking bathroom breaks -- and breaks for much-needed sleep.
"All of this boils down to pressure, pressure that drives these guys to not stop or take rest breaks if they can avoid it. The urine bottle is a symptom of that," said Harry Gow, president of Canadians for Responsible and Safe Highways (CRASH.)
The most serious problem is driver fatigue, happening too often because drivers are not stopping often enough to rest, Gow said. That puts other motorists at risk.
"Most of the testimony by truck drivers at hearings and in discussions with researchers indicates they will pop wake-up pills, drink a lot of coffee, drink Red Bull, eat a fair amount of junk food, to keep on going," said Gow.
Mike Underwood says trucking officials have only checked his log book twice in the last year.
Although the federal government attempted to improve road safety in 2007 by tightening regulations governing how many hours a trucker can drive a day, Gow says the results aren't particularly stunning.
"Between a log-book system that doesn't work and the pressures shippers place on trucking companies... the problem is drivers have to get the load somewhere in 25 hours or the shipper will go to another trucker. And the pressure comes down on the truckers," he said.
Barry Wellar, a transportation expert and retired professor at the University of Ottawa, says North America's just-in-time delivery system means there is little time for truckers to waste.
"This is the largest industry in Canada, and we've basically built in no room for error. And the drivers are pushed," said Wellar.
Dr. Ron Heslegrave, an expert at the University of Toronto on fatigue management, said driver fatigue is a big problem that needs real solutions. Some countries have tried to solve it by holding everyone in the system responsible. For example, Australia and New Zealand are moving toward legislation that would hold truckers, shippers, the company, dispatchers and others responsible in a truck accident.
"Currently, in most instances (in Canada), the driver takes responsibility. But the driver operates within a system, and if you follow the chain of responsibility -- the dispatcher, the shipper, the company -- other parts can be responsible because they are not managing it or they're not allowing various parts of the system to manage it better," Heslegrave said.
Bob Dolyniuk, general manager of the Manitoba Trucking Association, said if drivers aren't stopping, they are either doing something wrong or are in an unacceptable situation.
"Trips should be planned and dispatched based on the available hours a driver has to drive and to work and to rest. Whether they are going 100 kilometres or 2,000 kilometres, there has to be reasonable hours for the individual to make those trips and get in the proper rest," Dolyniuk said.
Compounding the problem is the practical matter of a shortage of places to sleep. Drivers say Canada is not as trucker-friendly as the U.S., and one proof of that is the shortage of truck stops and rest areas in Canada.
"All the government is using us for is a cash-cow. They don't care. The money they get from fuel taxes and licensing -- less than half of it goes back into infrastructure," said Al Gillings of London, Ont., a veteran truck driver on the road more than 30 years.
"We don't need much, just some simple rest areas, put in a few port-a-potties along the road."
The Ontario-based truckers were taking a short break on a long haul at a truck stop in Headingley recently.
Some truckers suggest teams of drivers are primarily responsible for the yellow liquid waste. Trucks are designed for two people, but there have been reports of three, even four, driving one truck in shifts. It means being able to stay on the road longer, despite the regulations.
"I've seen it in B.C. and Ontario, I haven't seen it on the Prairies. You got guys running team and not stopping," said Mike Underwood, a truck driver from Regina, Sask. on a rest break at the Flying J in Headingley.
It's illegal to keep trucks running 24/7, and there are mechanisms in place that should be able to catch it. Truckers have to go through inspection stations and complete log books each time they stop and start the truck. Some trucks have GPS tracking systems that would allow companies to pinpoint their location and track movements. A log book should reveal if a truck is getting somewhere too quickly.
However, some drivers say inspection stations aren't open often enough and when they are, there are ways to get around them. In addition, log books are not checked as often as expected, and it's up to the driver to accurately record information.
"I bought this truck last July, and it's at 203,000 kilometres, and I've only had my log book checked twice, both times in B.C.," Underwood said.
selena.hinds@freepress.mb.ca
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