Isabelle Hains will appear on the Rick Howe Show at 4:45 pm.
Click here to listen live.
Friday, February 11, 2011
Thursday, February 10, 2011
Passengers Vans are Weapons on Wheels
A police officer investigates the scene of a crash involving a school bus and a van that left five people dead and several others seriously injured in St. George de Bethtierville, Quebec on Tuesday, February 9, 2011. (Ryan Remiorz / THE CANADIAN PRESS)The accident in Quebec yesterday is a tragic reminder that passenger vans - both 15 and 12 seaters - should never be used to transport human beings.
Ironically, and to our great sorrow, it has taken the deaths of five more victims to bring this issue to the attention of politicians across Canada.
Two vehicles - one that we want our children in - the Yellow School Bus - and the other that we don't want our children in, a passenger van, a death trap on wheels that should be banned for transporting children across Canada.
There is another vehicle that can be used: it's a D270 CSA Approved Multi Function Activity Bus that is made with the same child protection and safety engineering features as a yellow school bus. It's time parents starting demanding that their children be transported in the safest vehicle possible because 12 and 15 passenger vans are weapons on wheels.
Quebec Crash shows Passenger Vans "Death Traps" and Yellow School Buses Safest Way to Transport Children
A police officer investigates the scene of a crash involving a school bus and a van that left five people dead and several others seriously injured in St. George de Bethtierville, Quebec on Tuesday, February 9, 2011. (Ryan Remiorz / THE CANADIAN PRESS)(Bathurst, NB - February 9, 2011) - A Bathurst mother whose son was killed three years ago in a 15 passenger van collision says a tragic accident yesterday in Quebec proves that 12 and 15 passenger vans are "death traps" that are unfit for human transportation.
Five young workers on their way home from a night shift were killed when their 12 passenger Ford Econoline extended cab van collided head on with a yellow school bus in Berthierville near Montreal. Three others are in critical condition.
"Their fate was sealed the minute those farm workers climbed into that van yesterday morning," says Isabelle Hains, whose 17 year old son Daniel was one of seven Bathurst High School basketball players who died in a horrific crash outside of Bathurst, New Brunswick in January 2008.
Hains believes that if the victims had known about the dangers of passenger vans they would never have agreed to ride in the vehicle. She compares it to a similar accident which claimed the lives of three farm workers in Abbotsford, British Columbia in March 2007.
She asks, "How many more people have to die before the federal and provincial governments outlaw these vans for human transportation?"
Bill C-522, a Private Members Bill introduced in the House of Commons last May by NDP MP Yvon Godin (Acadie-Bathurst), calls for the complete banning of 15 passenger vans for student use across Canada. Its fate is up in the air while Transport Canada conducts a safety review of 15 passenger vans, expected to be released in April.
Hains says the lack of serious injuries among the 13 high school students in the yellow school bus that was involved in the Quebec accident is further proof that the large, safety engineered yellow buses are the only way to safely transport school children.
Hains says yellow school buses and Canadian Standards Approved Multi Function Activity Buses (MFABs) have a number of safety features that are absent in 15 passenger vans.
"I hope this tragedy in Quebec sends a strong message to school administrators across Canada that only yellow school buses and the smaller "mini-buses" (called MFABs) are built with child protection and safety engineering features in mind."
Yellow school buses have steel reinforced beams that act like a cage to protect occupants from intrusions. They also have window and rear door exits as well as laminated windows that reduce the possibility of ejections from the bus.
"From the reports I have read, the children in the bus were bounced around, but they are alive and that's what matters. If these children had been in a 15 passenger van, the headlines would be very different today," said Hains.
Hains says the professionalism, experience and skills of yellow school bus drivers should have every parent demanding that their children be driven by licensed, school bus drivers only. "Parents have to demand that their governments transport children in the safest vehicles and when it comes to safety, nothing beats yellow school buses driven by professionals."
A 15 passenger van safety review that was announced last summer is expected to wrap up in April. Hains is looking forward to seeing the scientific results of a crashworthiness test that Transport Minister Chuck Strahl promised as part of the review. Recent information from Transport Canada indicates that the crashworthiness tests will take place before the end of March. Hains has asked to be present for the testing.
CBC: 5th Que. bus-van crash victim dies
Intersection was the site of similar accident in 2001
Click here to read the original story on CBC website.
A fifth person has died after a van collided with a school bus Wednesday in Ste-Geneviève de Berthier, Que.
Provincial police said Thursday morning that Gilles Chartier, 26, had died of injuries sustained in the accident.
Four men were killed Wednesday after the van they were in swerved into oncoming traffic and collided with a school bus on a rural Quebec highway.
Steeve Larochelle, 32, Sébastien Cormier, 30, Pierre-Luc Martel, 22, all of St. Côme, Que., all died at the scene.
Jocelyn Beauchamps, 28, of Joliette, Que., died later on Wednesday in hospital, and three other men remain in hospital with serious injuries.
None of the 12 students on the school bus were seriously injured, but several were treated for shock.
Police are still not sure what caused the collision.
"Has the driver fallen asleep, maybe, coming back from work, did he slip and go to the other lane, what were the road conditions ... so everything is going to be looked at," said Sgt. Benoît Richard of provincial police.
Richard said police are also trying to determine if the men were wearing seatbelts.
The poultry company the van belonged to, Pigeon 2006, has confirmed the van's passengers were employees, but declined requests for an interview.
Dangerous intersection
There have been concerns in the past surrounding the intersection where the accident took place.
A 60-year-old woman was killed at the same intersection in a similar accident in 2001.
As a result, a coroner recommended Transport Quebec make changes to the intersection, which features a sharp curve where two secondary highways meet.
Transport Quebec did subsequently add a flashing yellow light to improve visibility, and put forward a plan to install a roundabout at the intersection.
But 10 years after the first fatal accident, that hasn't happened.
"You have to understand that a highway project can sometimes take many years to realize," said Transport Quebec's Claude Ouimet.
She said preliminary studies are underway on the roundabout project, and it should be completed within a few years.
Click here to read the original story on CBC website.
A fifth person has died after a van collided with a school bus Wednesday in Ste-Geneviève de Berthier, Que.
Provincial police said Thursday morning that Gilles Chartier, 26, had died of injuries sustained in the accident.
Four men were killed Wednesday after the van they were in swerved into oncoming traffic and collided with a school bus on a rural Quebec highway.
Steeve Larochelle, 32, Sébastien Cormier, 30, Pierre-Luc Martel, 22, all of St. Côme, Que., all died at the scene.
Jocelyn Beauchamps, 28, of Joliette, Que., died later on Wednesday in hospital, and three other men remain in hospital with serious injuries.
None of the 12 students on the school bus were seriously injured, but several were treated for shock.
Police are still not sure what caused the collision.
"Has the driver fallen asleep, maybe, coming back from work, did he slip and go to the other lane, what were the road conditions ... so everything is going to be looked at," said Sgt. Benoît Richard of provincial police.
Richard said police are also trying to determine if the men were wearing seatbelts.
The poultry company the van belonged to, Pigeon 2006, has confirmed the van's passengers were employees, but declined requests for an interview.
Dangerous intersection
There have been concerns in the past surrounding the intersection where the accident took place.
A 60-year-old woman was killed at the same intersection in a similar accident in 2001.
As a result, a coroner recommended Transport Quebec make changes to the intersection, which features a sharp curve where two secondary highways meet.
Transport Quebec did subsequently add a flashing yellow light to improve visibility, and put forward a plan to install a roundabout at the intersection.
But 10 years after the first fatal accident, that hasn't happened.
"You have to understand that a highway project can sometimes take many years to realize," said Transport Quebec's Claude Ouimet.
She said preliminary studies are underway on the roundabout project, and it should be completed within a few years.
Globe and Mail: Video
Please note the reporter describes the van as a "mini-van" but it was a 12 passenger Ford Econoline van.
Click here to watch a Globe and Mail video of the Quebec passenger van / school bus collision near Montreal.
Click here to watch a Globe and Mail video of the Quebec passenger van / school bus collision near Montreal.
Globe and Mail: 'A vision of horror’: Five killed in Quebec school-bus crash
The young workers were returning home from their night shift doing backbreaking work catching chickens on local poultry farms. Then, just before 9 a.m., their van veered inexplicably into oncoming traffic.
The head-on impact with a school bus was so violent, the fronts of both vehicles all but disappeared. By Thursdsay, five farm labourers in their 20s and 30s were dead and three others critically wounded.
The collision at a wind-buffeted intersection in Quebec’s Lanaudière region is under investigation by police, but authorities said the van’s driver, who was killed, may have fallen asleep at the wheel after working all night.
“That is one of the main hypotheses we’re working on,” Sgt. Benoît Richard of the Quebec provincial police said at the crash site, an hour’s drive northeast of Montreal.
Police identified the victims as Pierre-Luc Martel, 22, Jocelyn Beauchamps, 28, Sébastien Cormier, 30, Steeve Larochelle, 32, and Gilles Chartier, 26.
Moments after the smash-up, witnesses’ worst fears were dispelled: The 13 high-school students heading to Pierre-de-Lestage secondary school were unharmed. Those who were shaken up were seen by psychologists and social workers at a local hospital.
One eyewitness who helped at the crash, 53-year-old Alain Charlebois, said the scene was “a vision of horror.” Police haven’t ruled out mechanical problems or speed as factors at what is described by locals as a dangerous crossroads on curve in the highway.
The eight male workers in the 12-seat Ford Econoline van worked for a business that acts as one of the lesser-known links in the agricultural chain. The company takes employees from farm to farm picking up chickens headed for slaughter.
The work is done at night to make it easier to catch the poultry. Workers enter dimly lit chicken coops and stoop over to catch thousands of birds by hand; they place them in crates that are loaded on transport trucks for the abattoir. “It’s a difficult job and it’s physically demanding,” said Christian Dauth of the federation of Quebec poultry farmers. The work is done at night “because the birds are calmer.”
The United Food and Commercial Workers Canada said the accident raises questions about vehicle safety and inspection involving the transport of farm workers. In a statement, the union called the accident “just the latest tragedy involving farm workers injured or killed while being trucked to or from Canadian agriculture operations.”
The company involved in Wednesday’s crash, Pigeon 2006 Inc., is one of about 10 such brokers that act as middlemen between chicken farmers and slaughterhouses in Quebec. It is not known whether its van was licensed as a transport vehicle.
Hours after the crash, long after ambulances whisked away the dead and wounded, debris from the school bus lay scattered along the snow-edged highway.
The head-on impact with a school bus was so violent, the fronts of both vehicles all but disappeared. By Thursdsay, five farm labourers in their 20s and 30s were dead and three others critically wounded.
The collision at a wind-buffeted intersection in Quebec’s Lanaudière region is under investigation by police, but authorities said the van’s driver, who was killed, may have fallen asleep at the wheel after working all night.
“That is one of the main hypotheses we’re working on,” Sgt. Benoît Richard of the Quebec provincial police said at the crash site, an hour’s drive northeast of Montreal.
Police identified the victims as Pierre-Luc Martel, 22, Jocelyn Beauchamps, 28, Sébastien Cormier, 30, Steeve Larochelle, 32, and Gilles Chartier, 26.
Moments after the smash-up, witnesses’ worst fears were dispelled: The 13 high-school students heading to Pierre-de-Lestage secondary school were unharmed. Those who were shaken up were seen by psychologists and social workers at a local hospital.
One eyewitness who helped at the crash, 53-year-old Alain Charlebois, said the scene was “a vision of horror.” Police haven’t ruled out mechanical problems or speed as factors at what is described by locals as a dangerous crossroads on curve in the highway.
The eight male workers in the 12-seat Ford Econoline van worked for a business that acts as one of the lesser-known links in the agricultural chain. The company takes employees from farm to farm picking up chickens headed for slaughter.
The work is done at night to make it easier to catch the poultry. Workers enter dimly lit chicken coops and stoop over to catch thousands of birds by hand; they place them in crates that are loaded on transport trucks for the abattoir. “It’s a difficult job and it’s physically demanding,” said Christian Dauth of the federation of Quebec poultry farmers. The work is done at night “because the birds are calmer.”
The United Food and Commercial Workers Canada said the accident raises questions about vehicle safety and inspection involving the transport of farm workers. In a statement, the union called the accident “just the latest tragedy involving farm workers injured or killed while being trucked to or from Canadian agriculture operations.”
The company involved in Wednesday’s crash, Pigeon 2006 Inc., is one of about 10 such brokers that act as middlemen between chicken farmers and slaughterhouses in Quebec. It is not known whether its van was licensed as a transport vehicle.
Hours after the crash, long after ambulances whisked away the dead and wounded, debris from the school bus lay scattered along the snow-edged highway.
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