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The Best You Can Be
by Rolf Lockwood
Luke Langlois has been at the wheel for 20 years, 15 of them with Kriska Transportation in Prescott, Ont., and after even a brief conversation you'll get the feeling that he's a positive sort of guy who enjoys his life to the full. He has passions, like collecting and smoking great cigars and sampling fine scotch and food with friends. He likes to listen to the blues and says one day he'd love to learn the slide guitar. When life gets in the way he and his wife Claudia take a road trip to nowhere in particular from their home in Brockville, Ont. "We've been there, done it, and want to do it again," he says. In fact they drove long-haul team from 1995 to 2004, which started not long after Luke landed at Kriska. "I started there and it just seemed right," he says. "I liked it so much that I talked my wife into getting her licence and we teamed for nine and a half years. Then she decided she'd had enough of the long-haul life, though I stayed with it for a while." These days he's doing regional distribution work on a Kraft Foods contract that sees him home every night and on weekends. It's a 60-mile cross-border run between Ingleside, Ont. and Canton, N.Y., and he'll do two or three of those in a day. That day starts at 4:00 a.m., and by noon he'll have crossed the border four times via the Johnstown, Ont./Ogdensburg, N.Y. International Bridge. Is that a hassle? Nope. "It's a 10-second ordeal," he says with a chuckle, "unless they send me to the x-ray, when it becomes three minutes. If there's three trucks in front of me, it's busy." But that simple crossing did get pretty hairy a year ago. He was traveling north across the bridge during a wind storm when he saw another transport truck flip onto its side, causing a section of the guardrail and a lamp post to tumble into the St. Lawrence Seaway a long way below. Luke stopped and, with the help of another driver, he secured the scene and got the trapped and terrified driver out of his overturned truck by smashing the windshield with a steel bar. Luke stayed with the truck to help emergency crews while someone else took the driver to Canada Customs for medical attention. "That poor guy just wanted to get the heck off the bridge," Luke says. Trucking isn't always that exciting, and it wasn't his first career choice. He spent several years as a forestry technician and might still be amidst the trees if the money had been better and the work more plentiful. But no regrets.
And no mistakes either. Across the continent, pulling flats and vans over those two decades, Luke has been recognized for his collision-free driving record many times and has repeatedly been the first to lend assistance and comfort at an accident scene. He's a pro, simple as that. Asked what advice he'd give a rookie driver, he doesn't hesitate. "You just have to be patient out there," he says. "You've got to leave space for those four-wheelers. You've got to give and give and then give them some more space, especially nowadays." Luke says he's noticed car drivers getting worse in the last five years, cutting trucks off more and more often. He attributes it to an aging population whose driving skills are diminishing. "I can't predict what they're going to do any more," he says. "You can never be too vigilant." Despite that, Luke seems to be a pretty happy camper. "Truck driving isn't a job, it's a lifestyle," he says. "It's provided me with a great life... For me it's about being happy, enjoying the journey and being the best you can be." Clearly, Luke's best is much more than good enough to be driver of the year.
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