The Canadian Trucking Alliance along with the provincial trucking associations, started National Trucking Week many years ago. This year, it began Sunday and ended this Saturday. The reason for the weeklong celebration is to recognize the impact of the 400,000 Canadians who keep freight moving.

Bruce Neufeld, Director of Safety Compliance and Driver Services at Paul Brandt Trucking in Morris, was a semi truck driver for over 5 and a half years, and put on almost 800,000 miles.

He says trucking is a lifestyle with unique opportunities.

"It's very interesting, you see a lot of country and places that you wouldn't ordinarily get the opportunity to see, but it also means you're away from home a lot, and so there's that to it," he said.

Neufeld adds he enjoyed his time as a truck driver.

"I adapted very well to that type of a lifestyle, probably because I had great support at home in doing that, so I made it an adventure. I looked forward to new destinations and new places that I could see and new people I could meet," he said.

Since 2010-2015 during his time as a truck driver, he finds the industry is still fundamentally the same.

"Equipment changes, it gets newer, it's different. We've gone from standard transmissions to automatic transmissions."

Neufeld adds the trucking industry is very important because it fuels our economy.

"The transport of goods from place to place, from manufacturer or distributor to the end consumer is very important, without trucking we wouldn't run our country."

As the Director of Safety Compliance, Neufeld is always thinking of driver safety.  

"Safety is everything, that's our number one concern with our drivers, is that they stay safe and that they make good decisions while they're on the road to stay safe," he said.

Neufeld says watching driving records, setting speed limits, and regular service checks all help keep drivers safe on the road.

"We rely on them, they are our front line of our business," said Neufeld.