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Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION

Hazardous cargo data on crashes disturbing

By: Steve Rennie

Posted: 06/27/2011 1:00 AM | Comments: 0 (including replies)

OTTAWA -- Truckers hauling explosive or flammable loads have killed and badly injured people after getting drunk or stoned behind the wheel, an analysis by The Canadian Press has found.

Government crash reports reveal that thousands of people who transport dangerous cargo put themselves and others at even greater risk by not taking enough care on Canada's roads and rails.

These accidents are few compared to the many millions of safe shipments of dangerous goods in Canada every year. But they raise questions about why some drivers handling such hazardous cargo don't always take the greatest possible care.

The information has been kept in a federal government database of reported accidents involving the transport of dangerous goods, such as explosives, liquids and gases, poisonous and infectious substances and radioactive materials.

The Canadian Press obtained the database under the Access to Information Act.

An analysis found sleeping drivers, carelessness and negligence, speeding and handling cargo the wrong way are just some of the many reasons -- besides drugs and booze -- for thousands of crashes in the last 20 years.

More than half the database's 20,000 entries list "human" error as a factor. That's three times more than the runner-up, "equipment."

Leading causes of accidents were: improperly loading, unloading and handling dangerous cargo, with 2,571 entries; drivers losing control of their vehicles, with 1,950 entries; and carelessness and negligence, with 1,746.

Impaired drivers caused 21 accidents and another 83 happened because drivers fell asleep at the wheel.

Those two factors combined with tragic consequences in April 1997 on a northwest Alberta highway. Crash reports say the driver of a pickup truck carrying diesel tanks fell asleep -- a fatality inquiry later heard he was drunk -- and hit a Greyhound bus head-on. The passengers were drenched in fuel when the bus caught fire.

The crash killed the truck driver instantly, and the bus driver and a passenger died in the fire. Twenty-seven people suffered burns and other injuries.

In another impaired-driving accident, a truck carrying radioactive materials ran off the road and overturned in southeast Saskatchewan in January 1992. The crash report says the truck "was a complete writeoff" but the radioactive source remained sealed. No one was injured.

Transportation law in the United States requires drug and alcohol testing of all employees in safety-sensitive jobs in aviation, trucking, railroads, mass transit, pipelines and other industries.

Canada has no such drug- and alcohol-testing requirement. Bob Dolyniuk, executive director of the Manitoba Trucking Association, said the industry would welcome such testing.

-- The Canadian Press

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition June 27, 2011 A9

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