Mother of Snow plow victim calls for side guards on trucks

MONTREAL- The push for better road safety for pedestrians and cyclists continued Wednesday; one day after a coroners report showed that the death of 33 year old Mathilde Blais was avoidable.

Blais was killed on a Saint-Denis underpass when she was struck by a crane truck on April 28.

The coroner’s report recommended side guards on trucks to prevent similar accidents.

South shore NDP MP Hoang Mai tabled a private member’s bill last spring in an effort to get mandatory skirts on side trucks, but it didn’t go anywhere.

The NDP has made efforts for years to include mandatory side guards in the federal Motor Vehicle Safety Act but the Conservative government hasn’t moved on the issue.

The push to get side skirts on trucks is a fight that is close to Jeannette Holman-Price.

Holman-Price’s 19 year old daughter, Jessica was killed when she was struck by a snow clearing truck in 2005.

“Jessica was in boarding school in Northern Ireland and I worked for 20 years in Europe. So we just assumed every truck had side guards. Every truck in Australia has a side guard, every truck in Kazakhstan has a side guard, why didn’t every truck in Canada, every truck in North America,” Holman-Price told reporters in Ottawa Wednesday.

Holman-Price has spent close to a decade trying to get the rules changed.

“It’s just so sad that people have to keep dying for something that’s been proven. It’s been legislated for over 30 years in the EEC and for years before that in Australia.”

Some individual municipalities in Quebec have switched to trucks with side skirts, but there is no federal legislation in place requiring the safety mechanism.