A private-members bill to mandate dash cameras on all commercial vehicles travelling B.C. highways has passed unanimously through the legislature.
B.C. Conservative member Ward Stamer says the bill started with families along Highway 5 in his Kamloops-North Thompson constituency who have buried their loved ones after preventable crashes.
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Stamer says in a statement that it finishes with B.C. leading the country on commercial vehicle safety.
He says the cameras hold drivers accountable, and make sure that when a crash happens, the evidence isn’t lost, disputed or “buried in a yearlong investigation.”
The statement says the B.C. Trucking Association endorsed the bill, noting that about 75 per cent of collisions involving a commercial vehicle aren’t the fault of that driver.
The bill will come into force six months after receiving royal assent.
Stamer called for mandatory dash cameras three years ago — when he was mayor of Barriere — after a series of fatal crashes on Highway 5.
“Good ideas shouldn’t belong to one party,” Stamer says in the statement issued Tuesday. “Every member who voted for this heard from constituents who’ve lost people on our highways. This is what the legislature should look like.”
Dave Earle, president of the B.C. Trucking Association agrees with Stamer that the legislation will hold the actual responsible party accountable.
“The vast majority of times when commercial vehicles are involved in an incident, they’re not at fault,” he told 1130 NewsRadio in an interview.
“They are professionals out there. The vast, vast majority of women and men who operate these vehicles do so safely, conscientiously and professionally. And this is just one more tool for them to show, ‘Yes, indeed, they are protected.’”
He adds that the details still have to be figured out in terms of which commercial vehicles the requirements will apply to.
“Are we talking about all commercial vehicles. So, everything from an Uber up to a Super B train. Or is it going to be based on certain classes or uses of vehicles? Those are all the things that we’re going to have to work through with regulation.”
In terms of bureaucratic speed to implement the law, Earle hits the brakes and says that he doesn’t expect it to be done in the next “two or three months.”
He notes that privacy considerations and management protocols of the dash-cam footage need to be properly addressed by lawmakers before we see all commercial vehicles being equipped with it.
Another hurdle in the implementation process, he warns, might be provincial differences in the regulations.
Earle calls on Ottawa to implement similar legislation across the country to avoid a “patchwork of regulations where cameras are required here with this format and this type of retention, but something else somewhere else.”
– With files from Jan Schuermann and Ben Bouguerra.
