Speed changes only part of what’s needed for North Thompson highway safety: Barriere mayor

BARRIERE, B.C. — Last week, (Dec. 14) the B.C. government announced new penalties to deter trucks from hitting overpasses. As part of that announcement, heavy commercial vehicles will need to have their speed-limiting systems activated to prevent these vehicles from travelling more than 105 km/h on provincial highways.

It will be more noticeable on larger highways like the Coquihalla, but limiting speeds has become part of ongoing discussions about what’s needed to improve highway safety, particularly on roads with a history of fatal crashes.

According to the BC Trucking Association President and CEO Dave Earle, an upcoming speed limiter change for commercial trucks is not what will ultimately solve ongoing issues related to highway crashes, but it’s a step in the right direction.

“It’s going to require adjustment on the part of the industry, adjustment on the part of customer expectations, but what it does is really reinforce is that safe movement is the number one priority,” says Earle.

Highway safety is a major concern in the North Thompson, where there have been several fatal vehicle incidents along Highway 5 North this year.

“There are some significant choke points that we’re having all of these crashes on, and we’re just doing band-aid solutions,” says Barriere mayor, Ward Stamer.

A new temporary speed limit was recently put in place for a stretch of Highway 5 outside of Barriere near the Fishtrap Rest Area, dropping to 80km/h for the winter.

“Fishtrap needs more work than just a speed limit reduction, but that was something that I asked the Minister (of Transportation) to do just for the wintertime and they were able to do that very quickly, and I want to thank them for that,” explains Stamer. “But there’s still a ton of money that needs to be spent here.”

The mayor wants to see more action taken alongside speed adjustments, such as lane expansions, better lighting and mandatory dash-cam use on trucks.

“Everybody (who passed the BC Chamber of Commerce resolution in 2023) passed the dash cam resolution, why aren’t we having mandatory dash-cams so we can see what’s going on?” says Stamer. “Trucking firms could be able to review what their truck drivers have done in the last trip to Edmonton, or trip to Calgary. [The provincial government is] still dragging its feet on that, and I want to know why.”

The mandatory dash-cam resolution was passed at the latest Union of BC Municipalities Convention and the BC Trucking Association also supports it.

“The majority of vehicles are already running (dashboard cameras),” notes Earle. “And what’s very interesting, and the data tells us this, is in about 80 per cent of the cases where there has been a commercial vehicle involved in a motor vehicle accident, 80 per cent of the time it’s not the commercial vehicle’s fault.”

However, sometimes there are poor driving actions taken and Earle says speed limits aren’t going to have as much of a deterrent effect as ticketing, suspensions and fines through Commercial Vehicle Safety and Enforcement or RCMP.

“The difficulty is those individuals who are making bad decisions are probably going to continue to make bad decisions,” Earle adds.

Even with current and upcoming highway safety improvements, people are reminded to use caution when getting behind the wheel.

“I just know that we’re going to have a lot of traffic in the next couple of weeks over Christmas,” reiterates Stamer, “so I just want to remind everybody to drive according to conditions and please be safe.”