Transport Canada Mandates Stability Control For Large Trucks And Buses
Canada's federal transport agency has announced that come June 2018, most buses sold in the country will have to be equipped with electronic stability control, following a regulation change that came into effect on December 14 mandating the technology in tractor trailers.
The federal government says its decision to mandate stability control for heavy vehicles came following the publication of a Transport Canada document stating that between 2005 and 2012, 70 people died and 819 were injured in tractor-trailer collisions in which the truck rolled over or lost control. It also reports there were an estimated average of 2,810 such incidents every year during that period.
The amendment to the Motor Vehicle Safety Act will come about seven years after stability control was mandated for cars and light trucks starting in 2011 and, as is the case with many Canadian road safety laws, is similar to U.S. legislation introduced in 2015.
Where buses are concerned, Transport Canada says the rule applies mainly to long-haul, inter-city coaches and school buses, but not municipal transit buses.
Transport Canada's latest road safety update also includes mandatory electronic logging devices for transport trucks that automatically track how many hours a driver spends behind the wheel at a stretch.
