The Ontario Court of Appeal has upheld the controversial absolute liability provision of the provincial Highway Traffic Act, which imposes fines of up to $50,000 on trucking companies for wheel-off incidences even when the owner or operator took every available step to prevent the accident.

Section 84.1(1) of the Act–a response to several wheel-offs in the mid-1990s–says when a wheel becomes detached from a commercial motor vehicle, the operator and owner of the truck are guilty of an offence and can be fined anywhere from $2,000 to $50,000. The section further provides that it is an absolute liability offence, meaning that upon proof of the wheel detaching, guilt is affixed. Due diligence is not a defence.

The court dismissed a challenge from Transport Robert and William Cameron Trucking. Lawyers for the companies argued that the law violates section 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and that the clause, by not allowing a defence of due diligence, “stigmatizes owners as someone who has exposed innocent motorists or pedestrians to the risk of serious injury or death.”

However, in a unanimous decision, the Appeals Court disagreed. It said a company charged for negligence in regard to a flying wheel isn’t burdened with the kind of intense stigma that comes from being charged with a crime. Moreover, it defended the provision as an appropriate action by the government to reduce wheel-off accidents.

The Appeals Court also in effect overruled a Sudbury lower court’s decision in
1999 that found the absolute-liability offence unconstitutional because it punishes the vehicle’s owner or operator for the offence regardless of who is at fault. “We’re surprised over the ruling that a trucking company can lose its democratic right to launch a due diligence defence,” Bradley told Today’s Trucking.

The Appeals Court decision came just hours before another accident, where a woman driving to visit family in Quebec was killed when an entire wheel assembly flew off an oncoming tractor-trailer and hit her station wagon.

While police said charges would still apply, section 84.1 would not apply in this case because the whole dual wheel assembly–the axle, hub, wheel and tire–came off.