TSB calls for better bus safety not heeded

OTTAWA • The head of the Transportation Safety Board of Canada is slamming the federal government for failing to take significant action after the 2013 bus-train crash in Ottawa that might have reduced the risk of injury to passengers in Friday’s deadly crash.

“Friday’s bus accident in Ottawa, coming on the heels of the 2018 Humboldt bus tragedy, and the earlier 2013 Ottawa bus-train accident, not to mention other examples, reinforces the urgent need for Transport Canada to take action on implementing crashworthiness standards for commercial buses,” TSB chair Kathy Fox wrote in a strongly worded statement released Monday.

The TSB made just such a recommendation when it investigated the 2013 bustrain accident that killed six people in Ottawa. Because a Via Rail train was involved, the federally mandated TSB investigated. Among its recommendations was that Transport Canada implement crashworthiness standards for passenger buses.

Currently, safety standards for motor vehicles contain no requirements for frontal-impact, side-impact, rollover or crush protection for vehicles in excess of 26,000 pounds, which includes most transit buses.

“As a result, buses in this weight category can have different structural features that may not adequately protect the travelling public,” Fox wrote.

The TSB also recommended buses be equipped with an on-board event data recorder, similar to those on airplanes to expedite investigations and accurate data collection — something that has not been implemented.

Since the recommendations were issued in 2015, Transport Canada has undertaken some work. “However, significant progress has not yet occurred and the safety deficiencies remain outstanding.”

The board is calling on Transport Canada to expedite its work.

The statement from TSB comes amid calls — including from parents who lost children in the Humboldt Broncos junior hockey team bus crash — for the independent agency to investigate Friday’s crash.

The Humboldt parents, haunted by the aftermath of the crash involving their children last April, say they were moved to speak out about the Ottawa crash in part because they felt traumatized once again by seeing another bus without sufficient protection.

“The painful path families of the Ottawa victims will take, has been the path taken by the survivors and families of victims of other preventable crashes such as the 2008 Bathurst, N.B., 15-passenger van crash, the 2013 OC Transpo-via Rail crash and most recently the 2018 Humboldt Broncos bus crash, and too many others in between.

“In each of those events, there is evidence of lax regulation, inaction and failure to protect road users. This tragic status quo needs to change.”