The province’s Auditor General says that safety in the commercial trucking industry is inadequate.
Norm Ricard flagged issues around the way the province performs inspections and Manitoba’s safety programs in a report over 70 pages long.
In the report, Ricard says that the staffing hours at weigh stations don’t always reflect the peak times that trucks are on the road.
He says that for three major weigh stations, Headingly, West Hawk, and Emerson, the audit found that almost half of all commercial truck traffic occurred when the facilities were closed. Ricard also said that both weigh station hours and mobile were too predictable.
“Too little coverage and too much predictability will allow operators to work around the department’s staffing patterns,” said Ricard.
The Auditor General went on to say that the department’s safety programs need to be more rigorous. He says as it stands right now, when the department issues a safety certificate to a driver, they don’t check the driver’s safety knowledge or practices.
Ricard added that a driver’s safety grade isn’t impacted by a failed inspection.
In his report, Ricard makes 17 recommendations.
The report also found heavy commercial vehicles make up ten percent of licensed vehicles in Manitoba but in a 4-year span between 2014 and 2018, commercial trucks were involved in 16 to 27 percent of fatal collisions.
