More law enforcement needed north of Kamloops after deadly truck crashes: B.C. Transportation Minister

British Columbia will consider beefing up traffic law enforcement, lowering speed limits and making dashcams mandatory on commercial vehicles, in the wake of two fatal crashes along Highway 5 north of Kamloops, B.C. Transportation Minister Rob Fleming said.

A driver was killed and a passenger taken to hospital on Feb. 9 following a collision on the highway near Louis Creek, B.C., involving two commercial vehicles and a pickup truck. 

Almost one week earlier, another driver was killed when two commercial vehicles collided on the same stretch of Highway 5, about 16 kilometres further south near McLure.

Fleming said he's concerned about the growing number of deadly vehicle crashes along a roughly 40-kilometre stretch of Highway 5 outside of Kamloops, which is about 355 km northeast of Vancouver.

"Anytime there is a fatality, it's obviously tragic for family and loved ones, and tragic for all the [police] officers that have to attend a scene like that," he said on CBC's Daybreak Kamloops.

All of the 159 violation tickets issued over the past nine days along Highway 5 north of Kamloops were handed out to commercial truck drivers and 100 were speed-related, Fleming said. 

Given the growing traffic law violations, more RCMP officers are needed and signs of lowered speed limits are to be installed on the corridor that stretches from Rayleigh to Barriere, he said. 

Barriere Mayor Ward Stamer has called for temporary speed reductions during winter, but also mandatory dash camera installation for all commercial vehicles in B.C., saying it would make drivers more accountable and provide evidence when crashes do occur.

No Canadian provinces or territories have a law that makes dashcam installation on commercial vehicles mandatory, Fleming said, adding the B.C. government will need to discuss possible legislation with the information and privacy commissioner.

Law enforcement and mandatory dashcams needed

Trucking industry professionals echo the minister's call for more law enforcement officers on the road and Barriere mayor's call for mandatory installation of dashcams on commercial vehicles.

Jim Nagel, who has been driving with Kamloops-based transportation company Arrow for four decades, said there used to be many RCMP officers on Highway 5 checking drivers' speeds.

"When I first started in this business in the late '70s and the early '80s, there were police everywhere — you couldn't go anywhere without seeing a police car.

"[Now] they're like ghosts — they only show up when the crashes happen," Nagel said.

Starting this August, B.C. will require commercial vehicles to use electronic logging devices to track drivers' time behind the wheel in order to reduce the likelihood of driving while fatigued. 

In October 2021, the province introduced a mandatory entry-level training for new Class 1 commercial driver's licence applicants, including temporary foreign workers, before they take a road test.

Kamloops retired driving instructor Tim Wourms said the training is necessary, especially since the trucking industry was deregulated in the 2000s and many people without driving experience in Canada have entered the industry.

"You [could] jump in a loaded Super-Bee full of gasoline the day you walked out of your road test and drive it in a winter storm — that's wrong," Wourms said, noting some people don't have experience driving in snow.