BC Transit said it plans to appeal a 30-day impound of one of its Kelowna buses that could be costly for the Crown corporation.
The bus was subjected to a mandatory impound after the bus driver appeared impaired and failed a roadside breath test early Sunday morning.
It turns out this could be a costly stop for the bus and the Crown corporation.
Because of its size, the impound penalty for the bus will be four times as much as a regular impound rate.
Published materials suggest BC Transit could be charged as much as $2,400 to get the bus out of lockup after 30 days.
At the city’s main bus loop, transit users, who didn’t wish to provide their names, were not impressed with the whole situation.
“It’s not the bus’s fault, it’s the driver,” said one bus rider.
“No, it shouldn’t have been impounded, but he certainly should be reprimanded.”
“I just really hope that there is more actions taken on the driver,” said another bus user.
“The transit system here is already a little bit slow so having another bus off kind of sucks if that is going to effect the schedules at all.”
The driver, a 52-year-old man, received a 90-day driving prohibition, but will likely not face criminal charges.
An RCMP spokesperson said it is up to the investigating officer to decide whether to pursue a criminal case and that decision is typically based on factors like the driver’s history and whether a collision occurred.
BC Transit said this situation is extremely rare and passengers won’t see any service impacts due to the bus being in lockup.
“This is a very isolated incident,” said John Palmer, the Crown corporation’s director of safety and emergency management.
“I’ve been with BC Transit for 19 years and I’ve never seen this happen.”
The Crown corporation plans to appeal the impound to the Superintendent of Motor Vehicles in hopes of getting the vehicle out early.
It is also conducting an internal review of the incident.
“Our internal review will help us understand if there is improvements to make and we will strive to make sure something like this never happens again,” Palmer said.
Asked if the provincial government believes it is appropriate to impound vehicles owned by Crown corporations in cases like this one, the provincial ministry responsible pointed out the Motor Vehicle Act requires vehicles to be impounded “no matter who owns the vehicle.”
In a statement, the Ministry of Public Safety and Solicitor General acknowledged that the bus was impounded and pointed out there is an opportunity to ask for a review.
“Registered owners whose vehicles are impounded while operated by other drivers may wish to recover costs from the driver by taking them to provincial court,” suggested the ministry in a statement.
BC Transit said it doesn’t know yet if it will attempt to recover the impound cost.