Semi-trailer trucks have hit B.C. overpasses 29 times in 2 years. Most drivers just received tickets

Sitting behind the wheel of a 14-foot-tall semi-trailer, Doug Clarke pulls onto Highway 1 near an overpass not far from his driving school in Langley, about 38 kilometres southeast of Vancouver. The bridge was struck by a truck last year.

Just a kilometre westbound down the road, he drives underneath a railway overpass. It was hit by a semi-trailer last week.

He then drives another few hundred metres further down the highway and points out the re-construction of an overpass at Glover Road, which he says was routinely struck by truck drivers over the years.

"They tore down the overpass and they're building a higher one, but [the old overpass] was higher than the railway overpass," he says.

"That's not going to solve it, they're just going to hit the railway overpass."

"Every one of these instances disappoint me," the 87-year-old lifelong trucker adds. "Fortunately none of these have caused a death. If they did, it would start to take on more importance."

There have been 29 incidents of trucks striking overpasses in B.C. since December 2021, when the province started making the data publicly available. Violation tickets were issued in 24 of the incidents, while in four cases, the carriers were suspended.

Instructors like Clarke expect the figures are much higher, with many less severe strikes likely going unreported.

He suspects distracted driving is largely to blame for the mounting number of incidents, which he believes could be curbed by regulatory re-training for licence holders.

"People aren't paying attention to what they're seeing, or they're thinking of other things rather than driving trucks," said Clarke.

"There's height labelling on all of the overpasses as to what height is, but most of the incidents are of people who haven't even measured the load that they're carrying."

No overpass strikes have resulted in arrests or criminal charges, including in the Sept. 19 crash on Highway 1 at Dollarton Highway, where the driver fled. They have yet to be located.

The company, Whistler 99 Courier and Freightways Corporation, is back on the road after being suspended for just over a week. They were fined $3,500.

'100 per cent attention'

Clarke's school has a fleet of semi-trailers and trains about 150 students a year under B.C.'s Mandatory Entry Level Training (MELT), a pre-requisite for a Class 1 drivers licence that came into effect in 2021. B.C. was among the provinces to institute the program in the wake of the tragic 2018 Humboldt Broncos crash.

"It's a full-time effort to drive these things and keep people around you safe," said Clarke. "It takes 100 per cent attention."

He says the overpass strikes are the result of missing basic, fundamental principles of truck driving: measuring your load and planning your route.

"The planning has to be how high is the load, that's number one ... second one is what route will I take that will allow me to go under it," he said. "It's got to be a complete plan."

Clarke says it's often veteran drivers who have developed bad habits over time that can be hazards on the road. He says many often apply for instructor roles at his school but don't have the skills to pass modern road tests.

"I would be quite surprised if the ones that are hitting the overpasses aren't the long-time drivers," he said.

One way to ensure standards remain high, Clarke says, is to have mandatory re-training for Class 1 licence holders every few years, similar to commercial pilots.

He also says increased fines and penalties for carriers could help deter reckless behaviour on the roads.

Stiffer fines coming

On Monday, B.C.'s Transportation Minister Rob Fleming was asked if the province would consider such re-training, to which he responded the province has been meeting regularly with industry stakeholders on potential solutions.

"We've explained to them that we are moving ahead with stiffer, steeper fines," he said.

"There's been huge economic sanctions of companies that have run afoul of the law."

Fleming said while the vast majority of trucks on B.C. roads make their destinations safely, the number of violations has still proved frustrating.

"It's causing all kinds of congestion problems. It's giving the industry a bad name, an industry that delivers tens of thousands of containers across the province," he added. 

"It just takes a few outliers to create this problem that's now very visible beyond its very rare circumstances."