Dangerous highway pass

A professional truck driver who travels between Oroville, Wash. and British Columbia hauling lumber most days tells Castanet he's fed up with dangerous drivers.

"People need to be safe around big trucks," said Charles Rosenow. "All it takes is one minor slip up and there can be a huge accident that can claim the lives of many people."

Rosenow was travelling north on Highway 97 near Okanagan Falls early Tuesday morning when he recorded a white pickup truck passing him on a solid yellow line.

"He was in a hurry, especially since he wanted to illegally pass me and he was going well above the posted speed limit."

Rosenow says he tried to catch up to the driver so he could report the licence plate to police but he couldn't catch the truck.

"I'm a truck driver, I drive up to Canada every day with my job, I pick up lumber in Canada and take it down to the States and this is the stuff that we deal with on a regular basis, people drive dangerously all around us."

Rosenow says he typically hauls loads that weigh more than 60,000 kilograms, "all it takes is one dangerous move or one blow out of their tire or mine, and we're all going for a ride."

"It's unsafe behaviour. And it's kind of nerve-wracking, not seeing any police presence out in the early morning hours is kind of discouraging."

Rosenow says as a professional driver he sees this kind of driving behaviour all too often.

"They're just in a hurry and they don't care about traffic laws or the BC Highway Act. They just don't care. I'm hoping it's seen that we (truck drivers) deal with this stuff all the time, dangerous drivers around us all the time in smaller vehicles," Rosenow says.