THUNDER BAY - The safety record of commercial drivers working for the city of Thunder Bay has caught the attention of the Ministry of Transportation.
“The city of Thunder Bay has performed not so well with respect to collisions and highway traffic act infractions over the last year and a half,” said Jim Suffak, manager of fleet services with the city of Thunder Bay.
“At this point in time, we have exceeded our threshold for collisions so the Ministry of Transportation has intervened and has required us to improve our safety standard to meet a satisfactory level.”
In the last 24 months, an increase in collisions and highway traffic act violations has resulted in the MTO downgrading the city’s commercial vehicle operator’s registration safety rating to conditional.
The MTO uses a set of minimum thresholds in relation to collisions and highway traffic act violations. The threshold is based on the number of kilometers travelled per year. The city of Thunder Bay has 190 vehicles in its commercial fleet that travel on average five million kilometers per year.
“Right now we have exceeded our allowable threshold and that varies on the number of kilometers travelled by fleets,” Suffak said. “The city has to significantly reduce preventable collisions and we have to reduce highway traffic act infractions, and those can range from being any charges that are related to collisions being at fault, and or highway traffic act infractions.”
Vehicles that are part of the city’s commercial fleet include city buses, specialized buses, heavy trucks, road sanders, plow trucks, and any heavy utility vehicle more than 4,500kg gross vehicle weight.
In order to bring its safety rating back up, the city needs to maintain a better driving record. If the record does not improve, the MTO can apply sanctions.
“We will undertake a number of important reviews of policies and procedures relative to driver training and driver interaction with our commercial vehicles, in addition to enhancement of our procedures with intervening with poor drivers,” Suffak said.
Karen Martin, president of CUPE Local 87, said she was dismayed when she first learned the safety rating of commercial drivers was downgraded.
"I was surprised in the beginning, but we are working collaboratively with administration in order to get this all clarified," she said.
According to Suffak, no drivers have been terminated, but a number of drivers have been suspended from driving privileges due to poor driving behavior.
Suffak added that he anticipates the safety rating of the city’s commercial drivers will be improved by the fall, as drivers undergo a number of retraining initiatives.
"I’m definitely going to be optimistic and hope for that too," Martin said.
“We’ve done training all along, we are just reinstructing drivers on their requirements under the highway traffic act and methods of reducing collisions,” Suffak said.
