3 years after devastating Humboldt Broncos crash, licensing for truck drivers in B.C. is changing

For Ginny and Lawrence Hunter, it was the worst day of their lives.

They spent 12 hours callinghospitals, watchingthe news from their Okanagan home, waiting to hear if their18-year-old son Logan had survived a bus crash in Saskatchewan.

But Logan never returned.

He was one of the 16 lives lost on April 6, 2018, when a semi-trailerblew through a stop sign and collided with a bus carrying the Humboldt Broncos junior hockey team to a playoff game.

The crash prompted national conversations about improving the training of commercial vehicle drivers, spurred in part by appeals from victims' relatives including Logan's father Lawrence and stepmother Ginny.

Those advocacy efforts have now paid off.

On Oct. 18, B.C. will becomethe latest province to officially implement Mandatory Entry Level Training (MELT),which transforms how new truck drivers prepare for the roads.

"We're doing this for all the survivors of the Humboldt bus crash and all the souls that were taken ... we're hoping that the small changes will make them proud that their lives weren't all lost in vain," saidLawrence Hunter.

Calls for the new training program, which requires a minimum of 140 hours of instruction in B.C., escalated after details aboutthe truck driver who caused the crash came to light in court.

The lawyer for Jaskirat Singh Sidhudescribedhim as an inexperienced driver who had spent just two weeks training with another person in the vehicle. Sidhu received an eight-year prison sentence in March 2019after pleading guilty to 29 counts of dangerous driving causing death or bodily injury.

ICBC statistics, meanwhile, showthat between 2015 and 2019there were a total of 285 fatal victim crashes involving at least one heavy vehicle weighing more than 10,900 kilograms in the province.

On March 31this year, B.C.'sMinistry of Transportation and Infrastructure announced MELT would become a prerequisite for semi-trailerdriver testing in October. The province followsAlberta, Manitoba, Ontario and Saskatchewan in implementing the program.

But while safety advocates, driving schools and trucking associations welcome the changes, MELT has also led to higher costs for students and warnings about "licensing mills"that sign off on incomplete training.

How does MELT differ?

Before MELT, driving schools had no mandatory curriculum or hours dedicated to practicaltraining for the Class 1 licence thelicence required for semi-truck drivers.

Drivers were required to take a 16-hour air brake course and two separate knowledge testsbefore their road test, according to ICBC.

That led to a large discrepancy in what many driving schools taught,said Dave Earle, president and CEO of the B.C. Trucking Association.

"We had some institutes that were ... teaching a variety of skills, then we had other organizations that were very focused onjust passing the [road]test," Earle said.

B.C.'s new minimum of 140 hours training is the highest in the countryamong provinces providingMELT training.The MELT program in B.C. includes 93 hours of practical behind-the-wheel driving hours, in-yard hoursand 47 hours of theoretical instruction.

In B.C., MELT has an emphasis on safely operating on mountainroads, withstudents being trained on routes like the Coquihalla Highway.

Other requirements include learning to chain up tires for snowy conditions and advanced backuptraining.

Doug Clarke, who operates Over the Road Driving School in Langley, B.C., says the new training leaves him feeling more confident in his students.

"Because there is a minimum, we can really do our job.We can really get into the finer points of truck driving," he said.

Training costs triple

With MELT, Class 1 training costswill increasefromaround $5,000 to $15,000, typically, according to Earle.

For aspiring drivers like Mike Mcintyre from Lytton, B.C., tripled costs are a barrier to getting the licence.

"It's a little pricey, especially if you don't have the money to back it up as EI funding, First Nations dollars or some other organization that will pay for it ... It's gonna be pretty hard to pay $15,000," he said.

Mcintyrefailed his first Class 1 road test and would now need to complete MELT training to take another road test.

As a cheaper alternative, he is now considering getting a Class 3 licence instead, which would allow him to drive dump trucks and large tow trucks.

Rob Fleming, B.C.'s Minister of Transportation and Infrastructure, says there are several funds andgrantsregarding MELT for both job seekers and employers.

'Licensing mills'

Ontario was the first province to adopt MELT, in 2017.

Kim Richardson, president of the Truck Training Schools Association of Ontariowhich representsover 60 driving schools says the province's experience with the program has shown the importance of auditing schools to ensurehonest and accurate training.

Richardson says there's insufficient regulation of "licensing mills," which he describes as people and organizations that do not operate MELT honestly.

"When they're signing off on documents, they could be signing for two hours of training, and they only received 30 minutes," he said, by way of example.

"We've heard some real horror stories."

In B.C., driving schools can be audited on MELT at any time by ICBC inspectors, says Steve Houghton of Gold Star Professional Driving School, who was part of the contracting team hired by the insurance corporation to facilitate the program.

He says strict training measures and paperwork requirements for each student should mean a large increase in the pass rate.

"If there's a particular school that doesn't have that high percentage [of pass rates], that kind of makes you think, well, maybe they're skimping on the hours,"Houghton said.

Fleming said there are fines and penalties in place for schools that "graduate people too easily."

A testament to trust

In future, Ginny and Lawrence Hunter hope to see more nationally cohesive standards, where, for example, a driver from the Prairies entering B.C.'s mountainousterrain can drive confidently.

But MELTis the first step, they say.

"We got to make something positivecome out of something so tragic," Lawrence Hunter said.

"Logan and those people who got on that bus that day, they trusted that they would arrive safely. And we want to increase that level of trust."