Owner of truck in Humboldt tragedy gets $5,000 fine

[Gord M]

The driver gets 8 years in prison before being deported, surprise......hes not a Canadian. I think he should be deported today and the owner of the trucking company that put a brand new driver on the highway should have to serve the eight years. Why do we feed the driver for eight years? Send the driver back to where he came from as his mental torment will always be his jail, but the real culprit walks free in Calgary. Its a disgrace and an injustice that the cause of the accident is free. He owner of that truck should never be allowed to be involved in transportation again. He has proven he has no regard for the lives of the people in Saskatchewan and Alberta.

 

[Freight Broker]

Owner of the trucking company had no idea that his new driver with a clean driving record would run a stop sign. We all had a day 1 in this industry.. People keep saying that the driver was poorly trained.. well.. I guess maybe he didn't know what STOP means. No one other than the driver knows why he ran a well marked stop sign... Would more rigrous training have prevented this accident? Maybe a fifty hour course on what a stop sign means.. complete with diagrams and schematics. "More training" is a knee jerk reaction.. the driver was simply completely inattentive or possibly he ran it on purpose.. too lazy to stop and figured no traffic there anyway. He knew how to drive the truck. Trucking company owner made mistakes too, but hiring a green driver with a clean abstract wasn't one of them.

 

[lowmiler88]

I agree with most of what you say Freight Broker but the owner did not keep any records or check to even see if the driver was running proper logs he is a big part of the problem. I know ELD's are not popular but maybe this would have avoided this accident because I'm will to bet that if the logs had been followed properly that truck would not have even been at that stop sign. The owner should not be allowed to own a trucking company or even be in management of a trucking company for the rest of his life.

 

[Gord M]

Owner of the trucking company had no idea that his new driver with a clean driving record would run a stop sign. We all had a day 1 in this industry.. People keep saying that the driver was poorly trained.. well.. I guess maybe he didn't know what STOP means. No one other than the driver knows why he ran a well marked stop sign... Would more rigrous training have prevented this accident? Maybe a fifty hour course on what a stop sign means.. complete with diagrams and schematics. "More training" is a knee jerk reaction.. the driver was simply completely inattentive or possibly he ran it on purpose.. too lazy to stop and figured no traffic there anyway. He knew how to drive the truck. Trucking company owner made mistakes too, but hiring a green driver with a clean abstract wasn't one of them.

The owner of the truck knew the driver had no experience yet ordered the driver to haul the load that had the accident near Humboldt, the owner of the truck has a responsibility to the Canadian public to ensure his driver was properly trained to drive safely wherever he is. The owner of the truck failed every mother and father that lost a son in that tragedy, he is the one responsible for the deaths and not the driver. The truck owner should be in prison, not the driver who was in Saskatchewan in an attempt to fast forward his citizenship. The driver gets to sit in jail for 10 years then he will be deported, the cause of the accident walks away with a $5,000 fine and this is a disgrace.

 

[wesward]

I guess then what they are saying a human life is only worth 312.50 each
do the math
This is a disgrace to the trucking industry

 

[bellcitytransport]

The owner of the truck knew the driver had no experience yet ordered the driver to haul the load that had the accident near Humboldt, the owner of the truck has a responsibility to the Canadian public to ensure his driver was properly trained to drive safely wherever he is. The owner of the truck failed every mother and father that lost a son in that tragedy, he is the one responsible for the deaths and not the driver. The truck owner should be in prison, not the driver who was in Saskatchewan in an attempt to fast forward his citizenship. The driver gets to sit in jail for 10 years then he will be deported, the cause of the accident walks away with a $5,000 fine and this is a disgrace.

There was 1 daughter lost in the tragedy of that day.. just a side note.. she doesn't get the attention she deserves as she wasn't one of the players.

 

[Freight Broker]

He ran a stop sign. How many hours of training does it take for someone to understand what STOP means? There is nothing at all to indicate that the driver didn't have the necessary skills.. I'm guessing here, but I'm going to say that most people.. even nondrivers... know what a stop sign means. Driver wasn't paying attention, and that has nothing to do with skills level.

 

[Jim L]

The real problem starts at the provincial level.

The province is required to 'qualify' that the driver is properly trained in all matters in regards to the safe operation of a commercial vehicle. To prove this has been completed the province gives the driver an nice shiny card with the drivers picture on it and a designation of either a class 1 in the western provinces and a class A in Ontario. Somewhere the driver of the Humboldt tragedy has proven to the province that he understands weight, speed, turning radius, air brakes along with his personal vehicle training which includes signs of the road. This leads to the next problem.

The carrier or vehicle operator qualifies this individual in large part by having a commercial drivers license. Sure, due diligence would dictate that you investigate and give training where needed but that is a whole different discussion. The Humboldt carrier did what is done countless other times with other carriers all over this country - the drivers license was checked and assumed that the driver had the skills to operate safely. It is not about experience, it is about if this driver can operate safely and the province has put their mark on the drivers license to prove that. The driver met the minimum requirements. The fine was in regards to improper record keeping. To say that the carrier should take a larger burden of proof lies at the civil level where in a court someone chooses to sue the owner and if successful show that the owner could have prevented harm. That will take up to a decade to complete.

As @Freight Broker mentioned, the driver ran a stop sign. If it were a passenger car nobody would have questioned it, maybe would never have heard about it. There are drivers all over this country with 25+ years experience in all types of commercial vehicle configurations that could make a mistake like this. The fault lies squarely on the driver for this one.

 

[lowmiler88]

Is the driver at fault - absolutely but the owner is at fault also, he had no records of anything logs, safeties, repairs, training etc so in reality he provided the time bomb the driver lit the fuse. We have approximately 85 drivers on any given day, the systems and people we have in place to monitor them is incredible, the backup files, log books, training files etc are incredible but this is what it takes to be a professional company. Anybody can get a license it's up to us to make sure they can operate our vehicle safely, it is our insurance record and our image that is at stake. If you rely on the government to do you qualifying for you - you will not be in business very long.

 

[Jim L]

Is the driver at fault - absolutely but the owner is at fault also, he had no records of anything logs, safeties, repairs, training etc so in reality he provided the time bomb the driver lit the fuse. We have approximately 85 drivers on any given day, the systems and people we have in place to monitor them is incredible, the backup files, log books, training files etc are incredible but this is what it takes to be a professional company. Anybody can get a license it's up to us to make sure they can operate our vehicle safely, it is our insurance record and our image that is at stake. If you rely on the government to do you qualifying for you - you will not be in business very long.

You are correct but that brings the next problem into play. The province, once again, has chosen not to enforce the rules they have put in place. They expect the industry to self regulate and that is being assisted by the insurance companies. You said it, 'Anybody can get a license', but the province allows it - the trucking industry shouldn't be the filter to identify if it was warranted.
I am sure that the province where this carrier was domiciled out of has rules in place which force the good, professional companies such as yourself to take the steps to ensure compliancy. You and I put these systems in place because it is the right thing to do and it assists with being compliant. In my 20 years of operating a carrier I have been audited once - and not until just recently. I find it a shame that enforcement is so blatantly non-existent.
The fault, once again, lies with the province. The province let this company operate without the fear of any retribution and to be honest, a $5,000.00 fine for non-compliancy is nothing. Provinces need to enforce the rules. This will force startup companies earn their right to continue to operate and force existing companies to continue to put systems in place to ensure they have everything it takes to become a professional, safe carrier.
I know that I put in a couple more systems and checks in place since Humboldt. All provinces should too. I would recommend an audit at least once in the first 6 months of operations, then again one year afterward before becoming a certified operator. Then either every 5 years, if the operation grows more than x% or violation rates increase, whichever is less. We all know its way too easy to start a trucking company and Humboldt shows us why this shouldn't happen. The driver made a mistake but the company should be able to prove that it was a safe operator.

 

[Jim L]

Just as a side note;
I had a driver come in today with all the qualifications to drive a truck. Fifteen years of experience in cross-border, supplied CVOR/Abstract clean with no entries about 2 weeks old. All his experience at the same company, a reference letter from that company stating that he was let go due to closing the business. Everything checked out and I thought he going to be in the truck this weekend.
The extra checks that I mentioned in the previous post was to obtain a CVOR/Abstract from the ministry. Its $17.00 and in this case well spent.
It looks as if this person purposely cut out the infractions and indications of experience at other companies that overlapped his statement and photocopied it real well. Looking further, we found that he doctored his medical expiration date and had issues at another company.
In this case, he has an AZ license and its valid but he is not a good choice for us. Should a Humboldt happen to us, we could have been caught red-faced when investigated after the fact. This driver is not going anywhere in my truck.

 

[thebluffs1]

. If you rely on the government to do you qualifying for you - you will not be in business very long.

You may not be in business long, but you will be far more profitable being noncompliant than the compliant carriers are....thats the real problem here that everyone dances around in these conversations. Reality is you can make far more money cutting corners than you can doing the right thing, so most new entrants who are in it for short term gain do exactly that. Pay company drivers as contractors, don't do background checks, don't do drug tests, don't bother with ongoing training, doctor drivers logs, and I could go on and on. I don't think its coincidence that these same companies rely for the most part on "loadlink" or transactional freight.


And our government lets them get away with it.

And you and I get to compete with them, and get painted by the same brush in the eyes of the motoring public.

 

[lowmiler88]

You may not be in business long, but you will be far more profitable being noncompliant than the compliant carriers are....thats the real problem here that everyone dances around in these conversations. Reality is you can make far more money cutting corners than you can doing the right thing, so most new entrants who are in it for short term gain do exactly that. Pay company drivers as contractors, don't do background checks, don't do drug tests, don't bother with ongoing training, doctor drivers logs, and I could go on and on. I don't think its coincidence that these same companies rely for the most part on "loadlink" or transactional freight.


And our government lets them get away with it.

And you and I get to compete with them, and get painted by the same brush in the eyes of the motoring public.

Perfectly said Bluffs, I know the OTA is a dirty word to a lot of people but we fight for even playing fields every single day logs, driver inc, laws etc. If anyone is not a member I strongly suggest you look into it be part of the solution.

 

[Jim L]

And our government lets them get away with it.

And you and I get to compete with them, and get painted by the same brush in the eyes of the motoring public.

AMEN brother! Exactly what I was pointing to. The province with its lack of oversight and failure to enforce the laws they put in is the problem.

We need the lawyer representing the deceased and injured in the Humboldt tragedy to take the province to court citing the lack of conformity in their licensing procedure and diminished appetite for enforcement at the carrier level. I'm sure a hefty settlement from the province will make the province say that it would have been cheaper to enforce than pay.

 

[loaders]

I know it sounds callous, but I am not sure if even 5, 10 or a dozen “Humboldts” would be enough for any Provincial government to step up its enforcement of transport regulations. Perhaps the onus should be on the Federal government, as they do with rail and aviation accidents, to investigate and if necessary penalize those at fault. Unfortunately, highway transport is for the most part, a Provincial jurisdiction.

 

[lowmiler88]

I know it sounds callous, but I am not sure if even 5, 10 or a dozen “Humboldts” would be enough for any Provincial government to step up its enforcement of transport regulations. Perhaps the onus should be on the Federal government, as they do with rail and aviation accidents, to investigate and if necessary penalize those at fault. Unfortunately, highway transport is for the most part, a Provincial jurisdiction.

To be honest Ontario was the only province with MELT for new drivers and I believe all the Western Provinces are now following along. AB was the province you domiciled all your trucks because they had the least regulations so they have had a lot of companies flocking to register in the province when they got in trouble in other provinces, I think you will see that changing.