Police have checked more commercial vehicles in Burnaby for safety violations this year than all of last year combined, and that appears to have made a difference in the number of unsafe trucks driving around on local roads.
In 2023, police inspected 811 commercial vehicles and had to take 542 (67 per cent) of them off the road for safety violations.
(That percentage was actually an improvement over 2022, when 70 per cent of the trucks checked inside Burnaby city limits had to be taken out of service.)
So far this year, however, police have checked 913 trucks and taken 545 (60 per cent) off the road for safety issues.
"A seven-per-cent drop, that's what we want to see, that we are going downwards, and I would attribute that to the consistent amount of enforcement," said Burnaby RCMP Const. Kevin Connolly, who heads up the detachment's commercial vehicle enforcement efforts.
One big reason there have been more truck inspections in the city this year is a one-year Burnaby RCMP pilot launched last October that has allowed Connolly to work on commercial vehicle enforcement full time.
He was already working on truck safety alongside his regular traffic section duties since becoming a certified Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance (CVSA) inspector in 2019 and has led regional efforts to combat unsafe trucks and drivers since 2020 through the Lower Mainland commercial vehicle group – agencies that regularly get together for rotating joint enforcement blitzes in different cities.
But the pilot has also freed Connolly up to drive around on his own and inspect trucks if he doesn’t have anything else on his schedule, he told the Burnaby NOW.
After inspecting hundreds of commercial vehicles in the city over the past five years, Connolly said he continues to encounter troubling safety issues: trucks on roads where they don’t belong, dangerous or improperly secured cargo, worn tires, bad brakes, and drivers who are impaired, not properly licensed or otherwise unfit to be driving a large commercial vehicle.
"It's concerning and mind blowing to see this kind of stuff driving around on a day-by-day basis," he said.
He pointed to an incident this summer.
On Aug. 27, he pulled over a flat-deck near Burnaby Central Secondary fully loaded with sheet metal and bound for a construction site on Kingsway.
Connolly was set up in the area to catch trucks turning from Canada Way onto Deer Lake Parkway en route to Royal Oak, which is off limits to trucks because it is not a truck route.
"But that's where the GPS takes them," Connolly said.
He said he could see the driver frantically putting on his seatbelt before stopping his truck in the middle of the road.
A "strong odour of cannabis" then wafted from the cab of the vehicle, according to Connolly.
The driver failed a roadside sobriety test and was charged with driving in a way likely to jeopardize public safety – a Motor Vehicle Act offence that comes with a $600 fine, a 24-hour driving ban and the vehicle being impounded.
Like many of the truck drivers Connolly and the Lower Mainland commercial vehicle group pull over, the flat-deck driver had a regular Class 5 driver's licence, which allows drivers to operate large box trucks and flat-decks without any extra training on things like securing cargo, conducting pre-trip inspections or pulling a trailer.
Connolly said that is a "significant contributing factor" to the problems police encounter with commercial vehicles on the road.
Connolly plans to fill that "training void" with an in-person information session for Class 5 drivers he's been working on throughout the yearlong pilot.
Burnaby RCMP plans to unveil the presentation next month in partnership with WorkSafeBC and the Burnaby Board of Trade.
Check back for more in the coming weeks.
Follow Cornelia Naylor on X/Twitter @CorNaylor
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