Four collisions involving transport trucks in northwestern Ontario over three days is prompting renewed calls for a plan to deal with escalating truck safety concerns in Northern Ontario, specifically along Highway 11-17.
There were several collisions, which included a fatality, in the region, this week. Rallies were held in several northern Ontario communities over escalating safety concerns about the region’s highways.
Community leaders and local politicians, as well as industry stakeholders like the Ontario Trucking Association, have been the provincial government to take meaningful steps to address the ongoing crisis.
“You can have laws but if they’re never enforced, they don’t mean anything,” Lise Vaugeois, Thunder Bay-Superior North NDP MPP, told CBC. Many of her concerns echo issues OTA has been trying shine light on for years – highway infrastructure, transport truck inspections, and transport truck driver training.
Vaugeois says the Shuniah Inspection Station is seldom open.
OTA has argued that inspection stations across the province, but especially in Northern Ontario, must be open 24/7 to identify the increasing number of unlawful carriers and poorly trained drivers operating on Ontario roads.
“Those inspection stations do a lot of really important work, but we’d also like to see this work taking place at the front end, so that the industry itself is being regulated,” Vaugeois said.
Vaugeois pointed to eroding truck driver training and licensing standards. The sector is becoming increasingly compromised with corruption, including “bribes, forged documents and rigged testing,” according to investigations.
“You can have laws but if they’re never enforced, they don’t mean anything.”
“I would hope that the ministry of transportation, the provincial government, that they take a serious look at what is going on,” Fiddler said.
“What are some of the contributing factors to these fatalities and accidents and road closures, and to try to put in place the measures to protect the safety of people travelling on these highways.”
OTA has made several recommendations to the Ontario government, which would reaffirm the province’s commitment to restoring law and order to the trucking industry. While some of measures the province has put into action are welcomed by the industry, much more needs to be done to reverse the erosion of safety and the sharp increase in criminal behaviour in trucking.
“MPP Vaugeois is bang on. Improving Northern highway safety, and restoring law and order throughout the province, requires 24/7 scales, and tougher enforcement and transparency on truck training schools and trucking companies,” says Geoff Wood, OTA’s senior VP, Policy. “It’s time for Government of Ontario to get serious about improving truck safety and protecting lives of all road users.”