CANADA Officials Seek Better Safety for Transporting Workers

At a coroner’s inquest into the deaths of three women involved in a van crash, the jury ruled the collision “accidental” and made 18 recommendations for improvements when transporting farm workers, including more random vehicle inspection, according to The Canadian Press.

The workers died when the van, reportedly overloaded and with only two seatbelts, flipped over on the Trans-Canada highway, crashing onto a concrete median. The driver was fined $2,000 for driving without a proper license and without reasonable consideration, however he faced no criminal charges, prompting outrage from the victims’ families.

In addition to more inspections, the jury classified 15-passenger vans as high-risk vehicles. Jurors also recommended farm workers be given improved education about their rights and that the provincial transportation ministry look into replacing concrete highway barriers with steel cable barriers. The provincial minister of labor, Murray Coell, welcomed the jury’s recommendations, but said the government likely won’t issue a formal response until the spring.

A report released by WorkSafe BC into the farm workers’ deaths, the province’s workers’ compensation board said 15-passenger vans carrying more than 10 people can become unstable. In addition, the incident came less than a year after another crash involving a similar van in British Columbia’s Fraser Valley killed three female farm workers and injured more than a dozen others. The B.C. Federation of Labour urged the province to adopt the recommendations of the coroner’s inquest, but federation president Jim Sinclair said the government needs to look at the entire industry.

In the United States, the National Transportation Safety Board issued a warning in 2001 saying vans had a higher chance of rolling over when fully loaded, but released another report in 2008 saying such crashes were declining. (workersxzcompxzkit)

Transport Canada, which puts in place safety standards required for new and imported vehicles, reports in a notice posted on its website last year that it hasn’t discovered evidence to support a similar safety warning in Canada.

Author Robert Elliott, executive vice president, Amaxx Risks Solutions, Inc. has worked successfully for 20 years with many industries to reduce Workers’ Compensation costs, including airlines, health care, manufacturing, printing/publishing, pharmaceuticals, retail, hospitality and manufacturing. He can be contacted at: Robert_Elliott@ReduceYourWorkersComp.com or 860-553-6604.

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