Two logging truck crashes in less than a month — one of them fatal — have made lumber-hauling safety a top priority for local officials.
And it has led to renewed calls from a United Steelworkers director for a review of the forest industry.
"The (fatal accident) happened right in the middle of town on a Saturday afternoon when the highway was busy with motorists, pedestrians, cyclists, with motorcycles — people are really worried," said Whistler's mayor, Nancy Wilhelm-Morden.
She directed Resort Municipality of Whistler staff to liaise with the RCMP on logging truck safety.
"We don't have any jurisdiction, unfortunately, over the provincial highway," said Wilhelm-Morden, "so we can't do something like ban logging trucks, but we do have responsibility for policing."
She reported on Tuesday, Oct. 23 that the investigation into the fatal accident on Saturday, Oct.19 is expected to take some time. Meanwhile, though, Wilhelm-Morden spoke with local Liberal MLA Jordan Sturdy about potential action the provincial government can take.
"In the meantime, we spoke about enforcement and the RCMP is stepping up its efforts," she said. "Anyone noticing speeding or overloaded trucks can call the RCMP with the license number of the truck."
In an interview, Sturdy said he is awaiting the results of the various investigations into the crash. Investigators told him they have a good sense of the cause.
"If regulation changes are required or suggested that will be forwarded," said Sturdy, who was recently given the job of parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Transportation and Infrastructure. In that role he is part of a province-wide discussion aimed at determining if speed limits on some provincial highways should be increased.
The first crash happened in the Cheakamus Canyon on Wednesday, Oct. 2. No-one was seriously hurt. But the weekend crash, which saw a southbound fully loaded logging truck tip and lose its load of logs, took the life of Hugh Craig Roberts, 65, of West Vancouver as he rode north on his motorcycle near the Nordic turnoff from Highway 99.
The Integrated Collision Reconstruction Team is investigating the crash, along with the Commercial Vehicle Safety Enforcement (CVSE) unit and the BC Coroners Service.
Wilhelm-Morden also took to Facebook to express her condolences to the family and friends of Roberts.
"It's absolutely unacceptable that a logging truck should lose its load in the middle of our town, or anywhere for that matter," she wrote.
United Steelworkers Union director Steve Hunt also offered condolences to Roberts' family. In an interview, Hunt reiterated the union's call for a multi-stakeholder review of the entire forest industry, including training and safety.
"We've been calling for that as Steelworkers for quite some time," Hunt said. "There's something seriously wrong when logging trucks tip over and logs spill out all over the place. Over the years, too many drivers have lost their lives because of either a lack of training or bad maintenance or a combination of many other factors that come into play."
He said logging truck drivers are facing tough economic conditions.
"Many of them are in business for themselves, they have to compete with anyone else with a logging truck so if the employer grinds them down then they really have to hustle to make their payments and make a profit for their families," Hunt said.
While the accident is fresh in the mind's of travellers, Reynold Hert of the BC Forest Safety Council said it is too early to judge the cause of the fatal log spill in Whistler.
"It's premature, we don't know what's happened and I'd rather work on the bigger picture," said Hert when asked if logging trucks should be restricted on Highway 99. "Logging is a key part of the economy. I think that we need to continue the pressure to improve things in the industry and keep moving forward."
Hert said nearly 1.5 million log loads move through the province on an annual basis.
"Over 80 per cent of the time the issue is with other vehicles on the highway, the logging truck wasn't the beginning factor," Hert said when asked about logging truck crashes. "However, having said that, the loads are still big, they are heavy and so the industry does work very hard to keep improving the safety on the highways."
Logging truck drivers are required to inspect their loads a number of times each trip. According to Hert, drivers have to inspect their load at the loading site, then check it again before they turn onto a highway, then monitor the load for any signs of shifting as they continue on their trip.
They are permitted to drive a maximum of 13 hours a day or 65 hours in a week, said Hurt, and are required to take nine hours off between workdays compared to eight hours of downtime for other commercial drivers.
The truck involved in the incident on Saturday had Pat Morgan Trucking decals on it. The driver hasn't been charged with any offences and Staff Sgt. Steve LeClair of the Whistler RCMP confirmed that one witness indicated to police that a cyclist might have played a role in the crash.
Wayne Jung, an experienced logging truck driver, who was also hauling logs for a different operation on Saturday, told Pique he was ahead of the truck involved in the fatal incident. He said it is difficult for logging trucks to move quickly through that section of the highway so he believed it unlikely that speed was a factor in the crash. Jung said he passed a cyclist who was riding in the travel portion of the road on the left side of the white highway line.
"I had to swerve out into the middle of the road to get around him," said Jung.
Based on what Jung knows about the configuration of the trailer on the logging truck involved in the collision he said if the driver had to make a quick adjustment in the corner before Nordic Drive to avoid a cyclist the trailer might have become unstable in that corner.
While the various agencies investigating the cause of the crash conduct their detailed look into the incident the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure said CVSE officers do more than 30,000 truck inspections each year. Violation tickets are issued and unsafe vehicles are removed from the road by the inspectors when necessary.
LeClair said RCMP members did stop some logging truck last week in Whistler as part of the force's regular duties.
"Some of our officers had observed three logging trucks and they were concerned about the load lengths and heights, so they stopped them," said LeClair. "There were some violation tickets issued and some warnings issued."
This is not the first time local government has spoken out about logging truck safety. In 2007 the council of the day voiced concern after three incidents over nine months. In one of the accidents where trucks lost their loads a bus driver was seriously injured, while in another three people were hurt.
In 2004 a logging truck lost its load on the Upper Levels highway killing a mother and daughter. In that case the driver was acquitted on seven counts of dangerous driving, including two counts of dangerous driving causing death. Four other people were injured in the incident.
