BATHURST, N.B. – The New Brunswick government says it’s too difficult and costly to implement the key safety recommendations of a coroner’s inquest into the highway tragedy that killed seven high school basketball players and an adult chaperon in 2008.
Education Minister Roland Hache announced here Tuesday that the province won’t require schools to transport students to extracurricular sports and other activities only in school buses, driven by school bus drivers.
"With all the extracurricular activities that are going on in New Brunswick, there wouldn’t be enough buses," Hache told reporters in the parking lot outside Bathurst High School.
Residents of this small city were devastated in January, 2008 when the 15-passenger van carrying Bathurst High School’s boys basketball squad collided with an oncoming transport truck. Seven teenage players were killed as well as the wife of the team coach, who was driving the vehicle.
The crash on a slushy patch of highway near Bathurst, N.B., killed 17-year-old Codey Branch and his teammates, Daniel Hains, 17; Nick Quinn, 16; Nathan Cleland, 17; Javier Acevedo, 17; Justin Cormier, 17 and Nicholas Kelly, 15.
It also killed Elizabeth Lord, 51, who was the wife of the team’s coach and driver, Wayne Lord.
Wayne Lord, his daughter, Katie, and two other teenagers survived the crash.
The team, returning from a late-night game in another town, was moments away from its destination when the its 15-passenger van was hit.
In May this year, a coroner’s inquest into the accident said poor winter road conditions, bad highway construction, inadequate driver training, an improperly maintained vehicle and other factors all contributed to the tragedy. It issued 24 safety recommendations after two weeks of investigating witnesses.
Hache says the province will implement 20 of those recommendations, including improving the asphalt shoulder on the highway, requiring winter tires on school vehicles, and asking schools to have overnight contingency kits with mattresses and sleeping bags, so teams don’t have to travel home after an away game in the event of a winter storm.
The province had already banned schools from transporting children in 15-passenger vans, widely considered an unsafe vehicle.
The inquest also asked it to forbid schools from letting teachers, coaches and parents drive groups of children to off-site events, and said no vehicles should be used other than yellow school buses or certified mini-buses that hold up to 24 passengers.
Hache says neither the province, nor New Brunswick’s schools, have the money to buy enough vehicles to implement such a policy.
He also said a new regulation requiring parents or teachers to take a special, daylong driver training course before they can transport students, would suffice.
"The priority is the safety of the children, and we feel if you have a certified driver, with the proper training, they’ll be safe."
Parents who lost sons in the accident said the province wasn’t going far enough.
"I wish they had implemented Class 2 (school bus) drivers," said Dale Branch, whose son Codey died in the crash. "There are a lot of things good in what they’re doing (but) as parents we’d all prefer school bus drivers driving our kids."
Said Ana Acevedo, who lost her son Javier: "I’m not satisfied. They didn’t learn anything. How many more children must die?"
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