The Quebec Coroner’s Office is calls for increased heavy-duty truck driver training in the province after investigating the 2013 death of a truck driver who lost control of his cement truck.
As reported by Today’s Trucking, coroner Andrée Kronström’s report concluded the driver lacked the skills necessary to react properly when he came upon a school bus parked on a steep downhill slope. The driver swerved and entered an emergency lane stop bed at a speed of 153 kilometers per hour and crashed.
The report also suggests the driver’s lack of knowledge and training led to oversights regarding repairs made to the cement truck just days before the accident.
“(The driver) had not completed such training and therefore had insufficient knowledge to allow him to adopt preventive behaviors,” stated Kronström.
Kronström says the Société de l’assurance automobile du Québec (SAAQ) should require mandatory basic training for Class-1 licence-holders in partnership with driving schools.
According to the magazine, the report points to 615 non-compulsory hours offered by Quebec’s vocational training centers, which “allows drivers to gain a solid framework for safe driving.” The report states students learn details of braking systems and are introduced to range of scenarios they may face on the road someday, such as navigating mountainous terrain.
Following the crash, the Quebec Ministry of Transport added cable nets to the emergency runaway lane in Petite-Rivière-Saint-François. The driver’s trucking company also introduced comprehensive driver training options, which the coroner’s report applauds.
So far, Ontario is the only province to have signaled a plan to introduced mandatory entry level training.
In May MTO released a draft curriculum for mandatory entry-level training (MELT) for Class A drivers, which is aimed at ensuring that all prospective Class A drivers acquire adequate basic competency in critical areas of safe vehicle operation while improving skills development.
Read the full Today’s Trucking article here.