crashes
OPP: number of at-fault CMV drivers is “disturbing”
TORONTO, ON – Commercial motor vehicle drivers are considered at-fault in about 65% of the collisions they are involved in, according to the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP). In a broadcast from his Periscope Tuesday night, OPP Sgt. Kerry Schmidt from the Highway Safety Division (HSD) wanted to “talk heavy trucks” while promoting the second season of his Discovery channel show Heavy Rescue: 401.
OTA, officials to meet on road safety
TORONTO, ON - With several truck collisions this month shutting down major Ontario highways for hours at a time, the Ontario Trucking Association (OTA) and the Ontario Ministry of Transportation (MTO), and well as the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP), are working together to create safer roads, and clear them faster after a crash. The groups announced the formation of two committees this week to address highway clearance procedures and strategic truck safety enforcement. OTA President Stephen Laskowski said by working together the groups could develop joint goals and strategies on these issues and more effectively execute them to improve highway safety.
Charges laid, OPP talking vehicle seizure
TORONTO, ON - Charges have been laid and changes are coming to the way police officers investigate and enforce dangerous driving behaviors involving commercial vehicle drivers in Ontario. In a morning press conference Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) Commissioner Vince Hawkes announced charges against commercial vehicle drivers in three separate incidents that occurred this year on Ontario 400 series highways. A Brampton, Ontario, man is charged with two counts of dangerous driving causing death in the Aug. 3 crash that took the lives of Todd Gardiner, 26, and Michael Glazier, 35, cousins who were driving in a pickup truck on Highway 401 near Port Hope, Ontario. A second Brampton driver is charged with two counts of dangerous driving causing death, two counts of dangerous driving causing injury, and one count of dangerous driving following a July 30 collision that took the lives of a 45-year-old woman and her 14-year-old son, while injuring her husband and 10-year-old son, as they returned from a camping trip. A third collision on July 27 on Highway 48 in the town of Georgina resulted in similar charges after the deaths of two and injuries to three more people, including a 10-year-old boy who was a passenger in an SUV.
U.S. fatalities in truck crashes up slightly in 2013
WASHINGTON, D.C. - Fatal crashes involving large trucks were up slightly from 2012 to 2013, according to numbers crunched by the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). Although fewer truck occupants were killed in crashes (691 in 2013, compared to 697 in 2012), and fewer occupants of other vehicles too, there was a spike in the deaths of non-occupants, leading to an overall 0.5% increase in the number of people killed in crashes involving large trucks. According to the NHTSA report, which you can read here http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/Pubs/812101.pdf , the number of non-occupants killed during a large-truck crash increased by 13 percent (49 people) from 2012 to 2013.
