B.C. trucking industry gathers experts to address overpass crashes

With the new year starting with yet another overpass strike in the Lower Mainland, the BC Trucking Association is asking what else can be done to prevent these kinds of incidents.

It was only the second day of 2024 when a flat-bed truck carrying a large load scraped an overpass along Highway 1 in Abbotsford.

That came just a week after another truck hit an overpass in Delta, leaving “significant damage” to the infrastructure over Highway 99.

While the province has announced tougher penalties and increased fines, BC Trucking Association President and CEO Dave Earle says the organization is pulling together industry decision makers to figure out if there’s anything else that needs to be addressed.

“We’ve got Commercial Vehicle Safety Enforcement, we’ve got the Ministry of Transportation as the umbrella group, we have ICBC as the licencing authority and an insurance authority, we have unions that we need to engage, we have industry that we need to engage, to talk about what else can we do to educate and to train people and to make sure that they know what has to be done,” Earle told CityNews.

He says he’s not sure that penalties need to increase, noting the province stepped up with companies like Chohan Freight Forwarders Ltd., which was suspended pending an investigation for its involvement in the overpass that was hit on Dec. 28, 2023.

‘These aren’t hugely complicated issues’

According to Earle, the information around how to prevent these incidents is out there — it’s a matter of looking at what else can be done provincially to educate and train operators.

“We also have conversations on a national level about issues like this, saying, how can we better coordinate enforcement activities between different jurisdictions? How can we track what goes on? B.C. does a really good job at the national safety code office — we’re the only jurisdiction that tracks assets by vehicle registration numbers and directors. We need to really help the rest of the country come along and come up to our standard on that,” he explained.

“These aren’t hugely complicated issues. This is making sure that people know what their responsibilities are, they understand that they have the tools to do it properly, and that when they do do it properly, they succeed, and when they don’t, there’s enforcement action.”

Despite saying the answers are out there, Earle is clear these crashes shouldn’t be happening.

“It’s incredibly frustrating and there’s no excuse for it to happen — absolutely none. It is not a complicated issue. The regulation hasn’t changed to comply. Pulling a permit and getting a route that you can print out, download, upload, whatever you may need is a matter of minutes. You know, we’re not talking about super extraordinary loads, we’re talking about these ones that are a little bigger, there’s a ton of resources that are available, so it’s incredibly frustrating that we keep seeing this,” he said.