Commercial vehicles continue to fail safety checks in Alberta

CALGARY (660 NEWS) — Police in Alberta continue to flag commercial vehicles for safety violations.

Lethbridge police are in the middle of a safety blitz looking for problems on commercial vehicles, and reports say that in the first day nearly three-quarters of the vehicles failed the test.

In past safety blitzes, Lethbridge police have reported similar failure rates in the 60 to 75 per cent range.

Officers in Calgary conduct these blitzes quite frequently, and the high amount of violations is expected.

“That would not surprise me at all,” said Acting Sergeant Larry Thibodeau with the CPS Collision Reconstruction Unit. “Our numbers in Calgary are very close to those numbers.”

Thibodeau said they see a range of problems, coming with different solutions or consequences.

“We see everything from driver’s logs, if that’s not recorded properly or that’s missing they can be put out of service for that. We see stuff like brakes, steering, insecure loads is a big one, trailers not working properly,” he said. “A light bulb out or something and requires attention. The other stuff — the brakes, steering — they’re out of service right there on the side of the road, and they either have to have it fixed on the side of the road or have it towed.”

The safety of commercial vehicles has received renewed focus since the Humboldt Broncos bus crash in 2018 that killed 16 people, with the driver of the semi-truck that hit the bus found to have improper training and failed to keep proper driving logs.

The previous NDP government in Alberta introduced changes to the Traffic Safety Act that would put mandatory entry-level training in place, and increase the number of hours new drivers need before making their first trip.

In June, the federal government also passed a law making electronic driving logs mandatory by 2021 in a bid to reduce the number of drivers failing to properly record their trips.