Evidence of meeting #136 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 bus.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Safety and Security, Department of Transport
It was important that we carry out a detailed, thorough, holistic, multipronged research approach towards addressing the recommendation in terms of crashworthiness standards, not simply adapt the American standards but have them properly done in the Canadian context to ensure that we do not cause, for instance, crashworthiness structural changes to a bus that change the weight dynamic or the structure to a point where perhaps there are unforeseen consequences.
NDP
Robert Aubin NDP Trois-Rivières, QC
I have to stop you there because I have very little time and many questions.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Safety and Security, Department of Transport
I'm sorry.
NDP
Robert Aubin NDP Trois-Rivières, QC
No problem.
I was wondering if you could give me a time frame and provide me with at least a year, if not a specific date. When was the last time Transport Canada conducted crash tests on buses or coaches, including school buses?
Assistant Deputy Minister, Safety and Security, Department of Transport
I'm not sure, but I can tell you that we will be testing city buses this summer.
Do you know when we last tested, Mike?
Director General, Multi-modal and Road Safety Programs, Department of Transport
I can simply say that the motor vehicle test centre does procure many buses to be able to continue testing and, as Kevin has mentioned, is now in the process of acquiring additional out-of-service buses in order to commence testing on the buses this summer.
NDP
Robert Aubin NDP Trois-Rivières, QC
In its report, the TSB recommended, among other things, the addition of a data recorders to the basic equipment of buses. I know you used it to record a driver's driving hours. Do you think it would be useful to have such data recorders on buses? Would they allow us to better understand collisions? My question also concerns video cameras, which were also mentioned in the TSB report
Liberal
Assistant Deputy Minister, Safety and Security, Department of Transport
The short answer is, absolutely. We continue to work with the Society of Automotive Engineers, the SAE, to look through that and noodle through how to make that work with a crash or the event data recorder in response to the third recommendation.
Liberal
Churence Rogers Liberal Bonavista—Burin—Trinity, NL
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Welcome to our guests.
First of all, I'll reference the documentary I watched on the The Fifth Estate about a study conducted by various groups that talked about how seat belts could make children safer on school buses when it comes to certain types of crashes.
Could you talk about that study a little bit and how it might factor into the current task force review?
Director General, Multi-modal and Road Safety Programs, Department of Transport
As part of the task force, we are looking at school bus safety from quite a comprehensive perspective, with an emphasis on seat belts and other safety measures, both inside and outside the bus.
In terms of other potential impacts, we would draw statistics from the national collision database on some of the leading causes of accidents involving buses. For example, based on the statistics, the leading cause for collisions involving buses is failure to yield the right of way. The second leading cause is around distracted driving.
Then it's important to contextualize these statistics around the full road safety statistics that we draw from the national collision database about how speeding is still the most prevalent cause of accidents in general, followed by distracted driving at around 22% of fatalities in Canada, followed by impaired driving at 19%.
We would draw on these statistics in order to then inform and help develop recommendations for what we might propose as part of the task force on school bus safety.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Safety and Security, Department of Transport
Sorry. I was just going to say that we know seat belts do add an added layer of protection to that.
Liberal
Churence Rogers Liberal Bonavista—Burin—Trinity, NL
Is the test you're going to do this summer part of the task force review?
Assistant Deputy Minister, Safety and Security, Department of Transport
The tests that we are going to do are, in fact, part of the task force. We are hoping to have an initial report from the task force before the summer. Then we will just continue to build on that for coaches, highway buses, and municipal buses versus specifically on school buses.
Those will be the tests going on. The pilot project that I mentioned in Saskatchewan, given the issues we identified, is going to take some time to get through, but those parts will build on what the task force is ultimately going to recommend back.
Liberal
Churence Rogers Liberal Bonavista—Burin—Trinity, NL
When is the timeline for the task force to complete its work?
Director General, Multi-modal and Road Safety Programs, Department of Transport
The task force had been instructed to work as a multidisciplinary task force to develop recommendations for consideration by the council of ministers in the spring of 2019.
Liberal
Churence Rogers Liberal Bonavista—Burin—Trinity, NL
Okay, thank you.
When it comes to bus safety, you see other jurisdictions in this report. It referenced the investigation. Do you know what other countries do when it comes to things like seat belts on buses or other safety measures to ensure that people survive bus crashes? Have you done much research on that?
Assistant Deputy Minister, Safety and Security, Department of Transport
In relation to school buses, we've certainly looked to the south many times and have some information with respect to that. There are eight states in the U.S. that have varying forms of regulations or laws related to seat belts. That goes from lap belts only, in New York and Florida, I think, to California, which has a more rigorous legislative approach to lap and harness belts, the three-point seat belts.
That's the American context. In terms of other countries, Mike might be able to speak more directly about that.
Liberal
Churence Rogers Liberal Bonavista—Burin—Trinity, NL
Has there been a reduction in fatalities as a result of these efforts?
Director General, Multi-modal and Road Safety Programs, Department of Transport
Yes, absolutely. We do have statistics on that. Over the course of the last decade, there has been one fatality of a bus occupant on a school bus, and that represents a decrease. The statistics going back to 1984 show 23 fatalities of bus occupants on school buses. That shows a significant reduction in Canada.
Liberal
Churence Rogers Liberal Bonavista—Burin—Trinity, NL
In 2020, it will be mandatory for new coach buses to have seat belts. Why have school buses been left out of this new requirement? I know you've answered that question a number of times with different questioners, so just a short answer would be fine.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Safety and Security, Department of Transport
It's in relation to all the operational issues that manifest on school buses differently than on transit or highway buses, coupled with how safe school buses are already built. Different from a transit bus or a highway bus, they're already built to be quite safe. There would be that. There are all those operational issues that Mike and I have talked about that complicate things to a certain degree and thus are looked at separately and differently than for highway buses or transit buses in the country.
