Ontario on-road fatalities surge
ORILLIA, Ont. – Fatalities in crashes involving commercial trucks reached a 10-year high on roads patrolled by the Ontario Provincial Police in 2017 – which also marked the highest number of road fatalities in general in five years.
The police responded to 68,794 collisions overall, 304 of which were fatal. In contrast, they responded to 67,450 crashes in 2016, of which 275 resulted in fatalities.
Ninety-one people died in the 76 collisions that involved commercial transport trucks. In contrast, 77 people died in 66 fatal truck-related collisions in 2016. Truck drivers accounted for 15 of the 91 fatalities, while 76 of the victims were in other vehicles, four were pedestrians, and three were passengers in the trucks.
Fatalities were on the rise off roads as well. Snowmobile fatalities reached an all-time high of 29 deaths in 2017, while the 31 people killed in boating fatalities reached an eight-year high. Twenty-two were killed in off-road vehicle incidents, and almost half of those involved people not wearing helmets.
“The OPP is saddened and disappointed to see 2017 mark one of the worst years in recent history for fatalities on and off the road,” said Commissioner Vince Hawkes. “As is the case every year, the majority of these deaths were preventable and attributed to poor driving behaviours. Until all drivers respect and observe road, off-road and marine laws that are designed to keep us all safe, these tragic deaths will continue.”
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Doesn’t surprise me at all. Because it seems nowadays no one (car and big truck drivers) seem to be able to drive down a straight road on their side of the centre line.
And they need two or three lanes to navigate a corner.
Sure not the quality of drivers there used to be. And even sadder, I’ve been run to the shoulder by police cruisers over the centre line and cutting corners. And driving at night with the daytime running lights on and no tail lights. Way to set a good example!
Sad to read these stats, I have been a driver trainer for 10 years and a long haul driver for much longer. ALL drivers need more training, drivers education is not mandatory for G1 drivers with so many people dying, do we really need to ask for a change in the law. Wake up Politian’s grab the bull by the horns and lead! Would untrained personnel be allowed in a high risk work environment anywhere else? By the way Ontario just reduced A/D/Z driver training course’s from a Minimum of 200 hours to 135.5!!! so as we all know drivers coming out driving schools have always needed more training. So to help out they reduced the training to 135.5 hours and patted their selves on the back by making it a mandatory minimum. One great step forward and two backwards. Ok that’s my rant over we do not need to see collisions on our highways it can be avoided.
Of the truck related accidents, it wold be good to know how many of these are directly related to trucking specifically as the root cause and how many are the general public as the root cause. I get it, no life needs to be lost, however I do see a lot of poor judgement with the general public sharing roads with commercial vehicles.
The problem is Licensing. We hired a male driver whop was born in India. He told me personally that he was a passenger in s commercial truck fro a number of years. When it came time for the testing, his uncle filled in for him. He passed. When it came time for the photography the Indian male passenger went for the picture taking. The way licences are issued should be looked at much more careful. Blame the ministry.
Hi
What is the total commercial truck population.