There’s a new call to increase oversight of B.C.’s trucking industry, and it comes from the industry itself.
It comes amid new numbers, showing a shocking number of hazardous vehicles remain on the province’s roads.
Inspection of commercial vehicles on provincial roads falls to the Commercial Vehicle Safety and Enforcement (CVSE) branch, who typically look at trucks at weigh scales and inspection sites.
Data provided to Global News shows that CVSE pulled an estimated 27,800 vehicles over for a closer look in 2022.
Of those vehicles, 12,200 were issued written warnings to fix issues and 6,300 had violations but were allowed to drive on to have repairs made.
Another 7,500 were taken out of service for imminent hazards until repairs could be made.
And just 1,800 passed inspection.
This month, CVSE stepped up enforcement along Highway 5 north of Kamloops in response to recent incidents. They’ve since issued 159 tickets, 103 of them for speeding.
Dave Earle, president and CEO of the B.C. trucking association, said those inspections are crucial, and that he’d like to see more of them take place.
“We would love to see more CVSE officers, more road blocks and more road checks everywhere to really drive home the point about how important this is,” Earle said.
Earle said while the numbers appear shocking, they represent just a fraction of the more than 330,000 commercial vehicles — ranging from pickup trucks to tractor trailers — on B.C. roads.
B.C.’s regulations, which require biannual inspections, are also stricter than the rest of the country, where just one inspection per year is necessary.
Despite this, he said there is room to improve.
“We do know there are problems inside that program where some facilities just aren’t as thorough as they need to be,” he said.
“From our perspective, it’s all about resourcing. CVSE does a really good job with the officers they have and the officers in the field, they simply need more of them.”
The association is also calling for what’s known as the National Safety Code Detailed Carrier Profile — essentially, a commercial operator’s safety record — to be made available to anyone in the public who requests it.
And it wants to see the provincial government share more information about crashes, like the string of recent high-profile collisions involving commercial trucks and Lower Mainland overpasses.
“There’s a variety of things that can lead to that strike,” he said.
“Sometimes it’s an honest mistake, sometimes its poor route planning, sometimes its an operator not caring and not being diligent. But unless we unpack those, unless we try and really learn from those incidents, we can’t improve.”
Global News requested an interview with B.C.’s transportation minister, but was told he was travelling and unavailable.
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