After 13 years as an independent trucker, Scott Lopes said this year he finally "had enough".

Mr. Lopes, 40, of Smith's, sold his business this summer out of frustration at the growing number of tractor trailer dumpsters on the roads.

"I was forced out of business," said Mr. Lopes. "I sold my truck due to the influx of illegal dumpsters, as the loss in business resulted in me being unable to make a profit."

He said: "The dumpsters should be at Club Med, not at Bierman's Quarry or Island Quarry moving aggregate – that's the business of the general trucker."

Richard Foggo, president of the New Bermuda General Truckers Association, yesterday estimated its members were losing up to $50,000 a day in business – approximately $500 each, due to the larger dumpster trucks being operated by construction and excavation companies.

These vehicles can take up to five times the load of the smaller hire trucks, undercutting them in both time and costs.

Mr. Lopes said yesterday: "The general trucker is not against the dumpsters but is against what TCD and the Premier has allowed them to move (aggregate). What would water truckers think if I suddenly put a water tank on my truck?

"The Transport Minister (Premier Ewart Brown) has given permission for these trucks, but he has to police it, as we've got people on these roads doing illegal work.

"You can't allow a dog to roam all over the place. The owner has to have control."

Mr. Lopes said he was also "blackballed" as a result of trying to raise the issue as a former spokesman for the Truckers Association.

"I kept getting blackballed with my letters to TCD and it just got to the point where I'd had enough," he said.

"I had a guy come to me wanting to lease my truck and he went to Correia for a day-and-a-half and the management told him: 'Don't bring back that truck boy, bring back any other truck but not that one'."

Dennis Correia, owner of Correia Construction, was last night off-Island and unavailable for comment.

Mr. Lopes also claimed: "I couldn't go down Island Quarry (to get aggregate). I just stopped doing the work for SAL because I knew I would be ostracised down there.

"But I don't need Dennis Correia's money or Zane DeSilva's. I will sit on the wall, and as long as the rent is coming in, I'm alright.

"I'm unemployed by saying these people are in breach, but I will survive."

Mr. Lopes said that since putting up his business for sale he has received a traffic violation, but said he is ready to work and "jump in the back of a truck" of anyone who stops by Middle Road, Smith's.

"I'm willing to work from the back of a truck as a hustler, and I will continue to fight the issue with my fellow truckers," he said.