Greyhound fined for freezing northern trip

Greyhound has been fined $1,500 for an incident last winter in which passengers endured a 20-hour ride in an unheated bus from Whitehorse to northern B.C., as the temperature outside dipped below –30 C.

The B.C. government imposed the fine last month after investigating passengers' complaints from the Dec. 29, 2008, incident aboard a Greyhound bus travelling from Whitehorse to Fort St. John, B.C.

An official with the B.C. Passenger Transportation Branch confirmed to CBC News that it reviewed the case upon receiving a complaint by David Hobus, a Whitehorse man whose daughter Beckie was on board the cold bus.

'Wakeup call'

"I think it should be a wakeup call to Greyhound and other public transport companies that passenger safety — particularly in the North, where it does get very cold — is something that they need to take seriously," David Hobus told CBC News in an interview that aired Thursday.

Beckie Hobus and other passengers have said the heat on the bus stopped working shortly after it left Whitehorse.

But instead of turning around to fix the problem, the bus driver continued driving the unheated bus for another two hours, then stopped to allow passengers to retrieve clothes from their luggage.

It was seven hours before the bus pulled into the southern Yukon community of Watson Lake, where volunteer firefighters gave the passengers some emergency blankets.

The bus, still with no heat, then continued on to Fort St. John. Passengers have said the entire experience lasted about 20 hours.

Maximum fine

The Passenger Transportation Branch says the $1,500 fine was the maximum allowed under provincial regulations.

"I think the message is that the B.C. government looks at this as a very serious incident," David Hobus said. "It's not the size of the fine, it's the fact that it's the maximum amount that can be fined."

Hobus said his daughter has received a refund on the price of her ticket as well as a letter from Greyhound stating that "passenger safety is their first priority and that they're doing everything possible to make sure that these kinds of incidents do not happen."

"You'd have to question it after it took pressure from the government, from the media and six months of them denying that they had any responsibility at all," Hobus said of Greyhound's response.

Isolated case: Greyhound

On Thursday, Greyhound spokesman Eric Wesley told CBC News that the bus line has a procedure to winterize its vehicles every six months and drivers are trained to report problems.

Wesley said the Dec. 29 case was isolated, as the bus left Whitehorse with heat and proceeded to the closest stop once the heating system broke down.

The spokesman said the system was repaired on-site, but the heat went out again afterwards.

Greyhound considers the case to be closed and there's no plan to put a new policy in place for the coming winter, he said.

Meanwhile, Hobus said he is still demanding action from the Yukon government. A letter he said he received from Transportation Minister Archie Lang suggested that bus safety is a federal responsibility, not a territorial one.

"I'm rather loathe to say that the government is ducking, but that seems to be what's happening. The government does have the right to regulate transport," Hobus said.

"They're required to carry fire extinguishers [on buses]; why can't they be required to carry gear to deal with cold weather and [a] breakdown in the heating system?"

Yukon government officials said they are looking into what authority they may be able to exercise in the future.