Evidence of meeting #135 for Transport, Infrastructure and Communities in the 42nd Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was collision.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Chair, Canadian Transportation Accident Investigation and Safety Board
The answer to that question is that it's a regulation under the Canadian aviation regulations, under the authority of the Aeronautics Act.
Conservative
Kelly Block Conservative Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK
Okay. Thank you very much for that.
Knowing that different acts regulate different modes of transportation when it comes to that kind of safety, I'm wondering if it's within the TSB's mandate to make recommendations to the aviation industry or even on bus safety.
Chair, Canadian Transportation Accident Investigation and Safety Board
As I indicated in the opening remarks, road accidents are outside of the mandate of the Transportation Safety Board except when a road accident involves a train. In the case of the OC Transpo-VIA Rail collision back in 2013, the board did make five recommendations, three of which touched directly on bus safety even though bus safety per se was outside of the mandate, but these were things that we learned through that investigation.
We would only make recommendations with regard to vehicle safety in the context of an investigation that we're conducting under the CTAISB Act.
Conservative
Kelly Block Conservative Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK
Right. I do appreciate that and would hope that what you do find throughout your investigation would be taken very seriously and implemented based on your recommendations.
Would commenting more on the safety aspect of something outside of accident investigations be something you feel would be a good addition to your mandate?
Chair, Canadian Transportation Accident Investigation and Safety Board
To be clear, our mandate includes accidents and incidents in the air, rail, marine and pipeline modes under federal jurisdiction. There would be changes required to our mandate and to other legislation to take on road accidents. It's really up to parliamentarians to decide whether commercial buses should be under the mandate of the TSB.
I would note that the National Transportation Safety Board in the United States, our equivalent agency, and some European countries and possibly others do have that mandate and do investigate commercial road accidents involving commercial passenger buses and trucks.
Conservative
Kelly Block Conservative Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK
Does the TSB keep statistics on crashes involving buses?
Chair, Canadian Transportation Accident Investigation and Safety Board
We only keep statistics on those types of events if they involved a train or some other federally regulated mode of transportation that we investigate. It's most likely to be a train as opposed to one of the other modes. Those are the only statistics that we keep.
Conservative
Kelly Block Conservative Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK
Okay.
I will now turn to the representatives from the RCMP.
Does the RCMP keep statistics on crashes involving school buses and/or commercial passenger buses?
Supt Jamie Solesme
The RCMP has a records management system that contains the information from all our occurrences, such as accidents or whatever incidents we're responding to. That does not necessarily mean we can pull the information out as people want it presented.
For example, when the officer enters the information on a bus accident, it could be added as a commercial vehicle. So it would take more data mining to actually bring out those statistics. I'm not saying it's impossible, but it would require some analysis.
I should also point out that the RCMP only has records management for where we are contracted to police, not for other police jurisdictions such as Toronto city police, Ottawa or others. We wouldn't be tracking for all police forces.
Conservative
Kelly Block Conservative Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK
What was the system that you referenced where these statistics are kept?
Supt Jamie Solesme
It's the PROS, the police reporting and occurrence system, and there are two other systems. B.C. has another system called PRIME, and in Nova Scotia they use a system called Versadex.
Liberal
Judy Sgro Liberal Humber River—Black Creek, ON
Thank you very much, Ms. Block.
We'll go to Mr. Hardie.
Liberal
Ken Hardie Liberal Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, witnesses, for being here.
The key thing and catalyst that got this discussion going was certainly the Humboldt Broncos tragedy. We've held off having these hearings until now because there was a lot of healing that had to be done in the community. So in the course of our discussions here, some information may come out that will be sensitive for the people who have had a loss. I think that the focus here isn't so much what caused the crash or legal liability in the case of incidents like the Humboldt Broncos or the OC Transpo ones; rather, the purpose of these hearings, at least as I had them in mind, is to consider the survivability of these crashes. The survivability really depends on two things. One is the available safety equipment and how effective it is in the event of various types of crashes, and the other is the integrity of the vehicle. This certainly was pointed out in a very stark way with the pictures of the Humboldt crash. That coach came apart. The top part literally separated from the chassis.
I'll start with you, Ms. Fox. I've always appreciated your visits here because you have brought clarity to a lot of issues for us. You mentioned that part of what you look at is crashworthiness. Maybe that's a good place for us to start.
Can you comment on the general crashworthiness of highway coaches, transit coaches or school buses?
Chair, Canadian Transportation Accident Investigation and Safety Board
The motor vehicle safety standards in Canada are set by Transport Canada, by the motor vehicle safety regulations themselves. We looked at that very closely in the context of our 2013 investigation into the OC Transpo-VIA Rail accident. What we learned there is that, for large passenger buses in excess of 26,000 pounds—excuse me if I stick with pounds—there are no crashworthiness standards, or they don't have the same stringent crashworthiness standards as you would find for school buses or passenger vehicles. There are no frontal impact, side impact, crush or rollover protection standards for that category of bus, for two reasons, we learned. One was their accident history, and the other was that they're one of the largest vehicles on the road, so they're more likely to withstand or survive a collision.
Given what we learned from the OC Transpo investigation, we actually recommended to Transport Canada that it develop crashworthiness standards for commercial passenger buses. We made that recommendation in 2015. There has been very slow progress to date, and given the most recent accident in Ottawa, we believe more needs to be done. The action plan needs to be accelerated to deal with that.
Liberal
Ken Hardie Liberal Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC
Thank you.
Sergeant Entwistle, you and your name are familiar. Did you work out at the coast at one point?
Sergeant Trent Entwistle Manager, National Collision Reconstruction Program, Royal Canadian Mounted Police
I did not, no.
Liberal
Ken Hardie Liberal Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC
Oh, you didn't, okay, then it must be your evil twin—hopefully not an evil twin.
Sergeant Entwistle, anecdotally, what can you tell us about the nature of the types of crashes, the impact on the integrity of a bus—the coach integrity—and the types of injuries suffered by the occupants? I'm thinking of a head-on versus a T-bone versus a rollover.
Do you have anything to offer in that area?
Sgt Trent Entwistle
Typically, when buses are involved in collisions, be it a school bus or a motorcoach, they're the larger vehicle involved in the collision and the injuries are more serious in the other vehicles.
Collision dynamics are very different when you go from a front-end collision to a T-bone type of collision, but anecdotally, when a bus hits a larger vehicle, there's going to be more damage to the bus, as opposed to when it is struck by, say, a pickup truck or a passenger car.
Sgt Trent Entwistle
Size, mass is the base answer. Typically, coaches are much larger and have much more mass to them than a passenger car.
Liberal
Ken Hardie Liberal Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC
I want to call on your experience more generally as a police officer—both of you, in fact. You have probably attended your share of car crashes.
When the Humboldt crash took place, the immediate thing we heard was that safety belts should be installed. However, as parents, we know that safety belts have to be used with care, particularly with younger kids, lighter kids—kids under a certain size or weight.
Without going into the kind of detail we don't need to hear, can you give us, again anecdotally, what happens when a seatbelt is improperly used, and the nature of the injuries that a younger, smaller person may suffer?
Sgt Trent Entwistle
If a seat belt is improperly worn, it won't do what it's designed to do in protecting your body in the event of a collision. If you don't have the torso strap over your chest or torso, it is not uncommon for you to be able to slide out from underneath of the seatbelt. For people who are smaller in stature, such as toddlers and youth, they don't just wear the seatbelts; they have to wear the seatbelts in addition to a car safety seat or a booster seat, to put them in a place where the seatbelt will be able to do its job.