Anti-smoking activist Heather Crowe died on Monday without ever having smoked a cigarette. You may recognize her from the TV commercial where she spoke of her battle with lung cancer – a disease she was stricken with after working in a smoky restaurant for nearly 40 years.

Meanwhile, next week Ontario will essentially become a smoke-free province – in public places at least. The Smoke-Free Ontario Act promises to “ban smoking in all enclosed public places and workplaces as of May 31, 2006, including restaurants, bars, schools, private clubs, sports arenas, entertainment venues, work vehicles and offices.”

Which brings us to trucking. Since your truck is your workplace, will the smoking ban extend to the cab of your truck?

What if you’re an owner/operator? In that case your cab is essentially your home away from home – shouldn’t you be allowed to light up in the privacy of your own cab? Will it depend on whether you’re on- or off-duty? Whether the wheels are rolling or not rolling? It appears the answers to these questions are shrouded in a cloud of smoke.

While the province of Ontario has reported in the media that its anti-smoking law should supercede any federal mandates, the Ontario Trucking Association has argued that the federal rules (which exempt vehicles) should be enforced.

I can imagine how we’ll find out the final answer. You’ll be driving along the 401, minding your own business when one of Ontario’s finest will flash his lights and pull you over. Panic will strike as you wonder if your load has somehow come loose? But nope, the officer will instead hand you a hefty ticket for driving along with the window down with a cirgarette butt dangling from your fingers.

Just what this industry needs – more regulation! Of course, there are times when smoking in trucks should be forbidden. If you’re a company driver and share your vehicle with others, for instance. No amount of air freshener will remove the smell of smoke from the upholstery and non-smokers shouldn’t have to deal with that while on the job. It’s also not unreasonable for a company to enforce a strict no-smoking policy in all its own trucks – after all, who can blame them from wanting to protect the interior from burn marks and smokestains?

As far as the owner/operator is concerned, however, I hope they don’t get burned by this new rule. Stopping on the side of the road several times a day to have a cigarette is not only inefficient – it’s downright dangerous. While the intentions of the Smoke-Free Ontario Act are admirable, I’m of the opinion longhaul truckers should be exempt from this rule.

And this is coming from a non-smoker.

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Summer season is almost here and, as I'm sure all the truckers are dreading, with it the increased traffic of daytrippers and holidaymakers on their way to the cottage or campgrounds.

Whatever route they might take, it's bound to be clogged and the irritation factor is sure to go up as grannies and A-type personalities on overdue vacation make their way onto the nation's highways.

Here in Ontario, the route we take to go "up north" is Highway 400 and then Hwy. 11, all the way past Huntsville and then just a little further along.

The most psycho of drivers tend to leave us just after Barrie en route to Wasaga and its dead fish beach, but it's never quite smooth sailing even after that.

The Ontario Provincial Police has been quite helpful the last few years with their on-the-road blitzes to weed out delinquent drivers, blitzes which evoke the most dangerous and risky of military campaigns.

"Operation: Get your smelly feet off the dashboard" and "Operation: Your dog's hanging out the window again" result in hilarious fodder for radio and TV morning shows on Mondays after a long weekend, when the most ridiculous of attempted road feats are relayed to the giggling public (the public that wasn't, of course, actually on the road WITH these yahoos.)

It isn't uncommon to hear about road trippers who had a trailer hitched to the car with a coat hanger, or who were setting up their hibachi barbecues in the back seat, etc.

Then there are the serial speeders who "were just trying to pass" or "who were just trying to avoid a bee that was trying to get in the window."

I fear that my husband, while not a speeder per se, could do with a little talking-to from a Uniform.

He tends to drive in the passing lane from Toronto at least until Gravenhurst, when the passing lane kind of comes and goes.

I have been conditioned out of this by a father who used to haul a trailer up north and who made me follow him, in the slow lane, all the way up at 80 km/h.

Any attempts to pass him resulted in a stony glare until I slowed back down again.

I'm glad of the OPP presence, even though they do tend to slow things down, because my biggest fear is the drivers heading THE WRONG WAY on the highway, something I fear we hear about a little too often.

Despite the driving woes, a long road trip does offer a chance to "stop and smell the roses" so to speak.

Everyone has their favourite pit stops along the way, if a route is familiar enough.

If we're having breakfast on the road, we like the Husky truck stop at Bradford, for example.

We used to purposely bypass Weber's burgers near Orillia but now that the mom and pop restaurants have all been replaced by huge oil refineries attached to McDonald's, Weber's is at least fast and kid-friendly, with a huge picnic area in the back, people walking their dogs, and old VIA rail cars to eat in. And, of course, ice cream that isn't made with petroleum products.

There's also a nearby old-fashioned candy store and Timmy Ho's in case you need a pick-me-up.

There is a spot near Gravenhurst where Hwy 11 curves to the right. If you glance right as you go around the bend, wow, the view of a narrow path of sparkling water against the rocky walls of the Canadian Shield is breathtaking.

So, in my opinion, are rolls of hay in the morning mist and the yellow rapeseed fields in mid-summer.

For in-car entertainment, we see who can spot the first cattle and then that person has to moo. Needless to say, the moos become tiresome after awhile but the sight of these lumbering beasts somehow never does. Aha, so that's the source of our non-fat dairy!

With regard to entertainment, by the way, it used to be that listening to radio programs in the car while heading up north, you got indie French pop on CBC Radio's northern stations or the elevator music of CHAY FM, once you got past the Orillia frontier.

Then there were the small local rock stations where you could hear young DJs making on-air errors and sneaking on their personal playlists.

Now of course everything is syndicated and Orillia sounds like downtown L.A.

And in our car, with the advent of satellite radio, the peace has been further broken by Howard Stern whining ad nauseam and my daughter's Disney station. (not to mention the beeps and plugs and wires of my husband's intravenous cell and headphones. Can't the OPP stop him for a change?)

After awhile I'm almost praying for "Raindrops keep falling on my head" from good old CHAY.

I have a friend who plops her kid in the carseat and blasts heavy metal bands all the way to the cottage, because after all, it isn't the kid's car, but in our car we take turns.

First it's my daughter's choice then my husband's. They both make fun of my music so it's not worth the bother.

Used to be, Friday nights, we'd wait til 9 pm, head out on the highway, and bypass the rush hour traffic on the 400, making it a smooth 2.5 hour drive and getting in to the cottage just before midnight.

That's no longer an option travelling with a toddler. Not to mention that I don't think we see that well at night anymore and the risk of hitting deer and moose just freaks me out.

(Correction: I don't see that well at night anymore and my husband can't take the backseat driving when I THINK I see a moose ahead!)

While she is a good-natured and flexible kid, having a toddler in the car means loading up on wipes, paper towels, drink boxes, a handy change of clothes, kid-friendly CDs, a snack that won't choke her if we hit a bump, and various other sundries.

My husband rolls his eyes when he sees the bags that need packing into our small car for a 3-day trip, but when the need arises he's the one who turns to me and says

"Did you bring the wipes?"

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Next time you’re sitting on the subway, in the mall or in a crowded restaurant, have a quick look around you. People of all ages, colours, shapes and sizes abound, but as the old saying goes, you can’t always judge a book by its cover. Chances are there is more to those people than meets the eye.

Whatever their age, sex or background, many of those strangers probably have some kind of hidden talent. The runny-nosed youngster with her Bratz backpack may in fact be a piano-playing prodigy. The elderly couple huddled over their early bird dinner may be spending their weekend scaling the jagged face of a mountain. The young woman pushing a stroller may in fact be the local Rock Paper Scissors champion or maybe she can hold her breath underwater for three minutes.

While some people may choose to keep those hidden talents hidden, others may prefer to display their odd gifts in the limelight. So for all those extroverted truckers out there, consider this your chance to show the world there’s more to your life than just driving a truck.

Truck News is looking for truckers with hidden talents for an upcoming article. So come one, come all, whether you be a painter, scriptwriter, ventriloquist, amateur stuntman or lion tamer, Truck News wants to hear about it. Feel free to post your talents on our blog or if you’re feeling a bit Web-shy you can always drop me a line at aledlow@trucknews.com.

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A day in the life of a trucker as we all know is not often a picnic.

But a day in the life of a trade magazine editor can also be a trying affair!

For example, when we're not in the office, which occurs more and more frequently, we're attending numerous conferences and meetings, etc. where we're expected to do the networking thing on top of gathering information.

If you're someone like me who is on the shy side and, when faced with a crowd of unknowns, prefers to hightail it to the bathroom to check your hair for the hundredth time, you'll sympathize.

Not to mention that the transportation industry can be an intimidating one to work in.

When I first started as a junior editor, it was the junior's job to go to the truck stops and do a "streeter", basically accost the truckers and ask them twenty questions, take their picture and run it in the paper as "truck stop question".

Though I never looked forward to doing this, once I was there I never felt uncomfortable.

In my experience, hanging out at a truck stop to do question and answer stories has often been less intimidating than going to an industry function such as conference or dinner.

When I first started in the industry It was not unusual at some functions to see girls in neon stretch dresses and bleached hair handing out little souvenirs or programmes. Used to wonder if they hated doing that sort of job but now I have been educated and I realize that they are not being exploited at all-they are in fact making more in two nights of work than I probably do in half a year!

Going to transportation industry functions it would frequently happen that I'd stumble upon a conversation between long-standing attendees where they'd be looking wistfully off into the distance, recalling fondly how much it used to be permissible to drink before noon and what sort of salacious activities used to go on at the function (before too many Feminazis got into the biz, I'm guessing!)

I don't quite know what the problem is, because Feminazis are now an emancipated bunch themselves in more ways than one.

Even busy wives and mamas are now expected to take lap and pole dancing lessons along with their Pilates.
It's perfectly middle class and mainstream, like hair lice. But that's another tangent.

Eventually I got more and more comfortable at these functions as I got to know more people and see them again and again. But then my editor said: "Let's raise your profile more in the industry."

First he wanted to give me a "special title".

"Okay, I said, well, I'm into the legislative issues, how about policy specialist?"

"No, that's taken."

After going down a whole list, we were no further ahead on things I could pronounce myself "expert" on, but that's ok, because there's nothing wrong with being a good generalist, in my opinion.

But he wasn't done, because apparently, part of raising one's profile also involved attending seminars where you learned how to "network" better.

I attended one seminar not too long ago with my boss where the instructor had a list of "Five quick ways of breaking into a conversation in a crowded room where everyone is already in a group and half plastered and not at all interested in small talk...." (or something like that.)

One of the suggestions that cracked me up the most was this:

Say you've just arrived at a function and there are 300 people in a room, most of whom you don't know. Instead of maybe sidling up to a little group and introducing yourself, this instructor wanted us to start waving wildly at someone in the room, (as if we knew them), go running up to them and then go "Oh, I thought you were so-and-so," and then introduce yourself.

I could just picture this scenario applied in reality at the type of function we normally attend.

If that's what I needed to do to insinuate myself into a hostile crowd the bathroom was looking better and better. Not to mention the bar.

I think, as I've thought all my life, there are times when you have to do a little bit of something you don't entirely like to do, such as working the crowd, doing public speaking and completing "group projects" (which more often than not is either a pooling of ignorance or one person doing all the work).

But I also believe, there are people whose strengths do not lie in this area and if they have other strengths, these shouldn't be discounted.

From my observations as a journalist, the people who go through a room like wildfire and shake hands with 50 people never know those persons' names later on, or remember much about them.

But if you have a few sentences of conversation with one or two, and, a favourite trick of mine that has helped me overcome shyness, ask them more questions about themselves than they'll ever care to ask about you, that's a guaranteed one or two friendly faces in a crowd next time around.

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