Quebec needs to do more to ensure safety of ride-sharing cars, coroner says

Quebec's auto insurance board needs to do more to ensure the vehicles used in ride-sharing services meet basic safety standards, a provincial coroner said following an investigation into a fatal 2016 crash.

The coroner's report examined a collision that occurred on Highway 40 between Ottawa and Montreal. It claimed the life of Katy Torres, a 30-year-old PhD student who was in the passenger seat of a vehicle that swerved into on-coming traffic and slammed into a van.

Torres was using the ride-sharing service Amigo Express to get to Montreal at the time of the accident. The driver and another passenger were seriously injured.

Amigo Express operates a website that allows drivers to offers spots in their car to paying passengers, usually for longer trips between cities. It claims as many as 350,000 people use its website.    

In his report, coroner Jean Brochu said heavy rain made driving difficult the day Torres was killed. But he also noted the vehicle belonging to the Amigo Express driver had brakes and back wheels that were in dangerously poor condition. 

Company welcomes recommendations

Amigo Express has guidelines that state drivers must ensure their vehicles are properly maintained before each trip. This, according to Brochu, is difficult to enforce. 

"You can have drivers with excellent vehicles, but you can also get just anyone as a driver, and just any old vehicle," Brochu said in his report.

​He recommended Quebec's auto insurance board — the Société d'assurance automobile du Québec — conduct annual inspections of the vehicles used by ride-sharing services like Amigo Express.

Other coroners have made the same recommendation in the past, but the SAAQ has yet to follow through. 

In a statement emailed to Radio-Canada, Amigo Express said it had read the coroner's report and welcomed the recommendation to have annual inspections.