‘Death trap’ van safe as bus, report says
Maintenance, driving skills are critical risk factors
HALIFAX The much-maligned 15-passenger van — labelled a “death trap” following several fatal crashes in Canada, including the 2008 Bathurst High School tragedy — is technically as safe as any other large passenger vehicle, according to comparison testing by Transport Canada.
That means Canada does not require a nationwide ban on the controversial vans, says a report by the Canadian Council of Motor Transport Administrators (CCMTA), a federal-provincial body that makes recommendations on transportation policy.
However, the 2013 report says governments across Canada must adopt harmonized, national safety standards on how schools should transport students to extracurricular events, rather than rely on the many ad hoc systems now in place throughout the country.
“Fifteen-passenger vans were generally found (by Transport Canada’s tests) to be as safe as other highway vehicles,” says the CCMTA report.
That finding comes as a surprise, following years of warnings about the vans by other governments and safety advocates in Canada and the United States, where the Safety Forum, a consumer watchdog, once called them “death traps.”
The large vans are prohibited for student travel in dozens of U.S. states and in three Canadian provinces: Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Quebec.
The latter two provinces instituted bans after seven high school basketball players and their coach’s wife were killed in January 2008 when the 15-passenger van they were travelling in collided during a snowstorm with a tractortrailer near Bathurst, N.B.
Three mothers who lost sons in that crash have fought for better safety standards for extracurricular school travel.
In 2010, the mothers’ campaign led to the introduction of a private members bill in Parliament, by New Brunswick NDP MP Yvon Godin, seeking a Canadawide prohibition on the vans in schools. Today, there are about 27,000 15-passenger vans registered in Canada, many belonging to schools and other organizations that transport children.
The Godin bill never passed into law, but it prompted then-transport minister John Baird to order a review of 15-passenger van safety.
Transport Canada did comparison testing on a series of vehicles, including 15-passenger vans, a 30-seat school bus and a 21-seat Multi Function Activity Bus (MFAB) — a mini version of the school bus.
The activist Bathurst moms, who call themselves the Van Angels group, argued that MFABs are much safer vehicles than 15-passenger vans, and should be the preferred vehicle of choice for extracurricular school travel.
But the tests found no comprehensive safety advantage for MFABs over 15-passenger vans in vehicle-handling ability, rollover risk and other factors. In some cases, “15-passenger vans performed marginally better than both school buses and MFABs,” the CCMTA report says.
Only in a side-impact collision were MFABs found to be superior.
The CCMTA examined the test findings. It also studied a number of fatal 15-passenger van crashes in Canada, including the Bathurst tragedy, and the 2007 crash in Abbotsford, B.C., that killed three farm workers and injured 14 others.
In the Bathurst case, investigators said the van’s inherent design was not a factor in the crash. Rather the decision to drive at night in a snowstorm, the possibility of driver fatigue and the failure to equip the van with winter tires were called the major factors in the tragedy.
Those conclusions convinced the CCMTA that the way schools maintain, drive and operate their vehicles is the most critical factor in keeping children safe on school trips.
Large passenger vehicles, even 15-passenger vans, do not handle like ordinary cars and minivans, and require special training to drive, load and operate. Therefore, the council says, “Canada should develop harmonized requirements for the safe transportation of pupils to and from school and extracurricular activities for all vehicles used.”
Those standards, which would be a first for Canada, should include strict driver training regimes, monthly tire maintenance and checks, and contingency plans for weather monitoring and for school groups to stay overnight rather than drive home in poor winter weather.
The CCMTA also says governments should send advisories to all owners of 15-passenger vans, explaining how to safely maintain and operate their vehicles.
But the Van Angels mothers, in letters sent to each province, have warned that the CCMTA’s recommendations “will have no effect on driver behaviour if not backed up by regulation and enforcement.”
The recommendations have yet to be acted upon by any government.