FINALLY: Charges in Humboldt Broncos crash.
Truck driver Jaskirat Singh Sidhu, 29, is facing 16 counts of dangerous operation of a motor vehicle causing death and 13 counts of dangerous operation of motor vehicle causing bodily injury. […]
Sidhu worked for the trucking company for a month prior to the fatal collision, according to owner Sukhmander Singh. Singh said Sidhu trained with him for two weeks and was driving on his own for two more weeks before the crash.
Although Sidhu was not injured in the crash, he did receive trauma counselling in the aftermath.
Sidhu was a bachelor of commerce student at Panjab University in Chandigarh, India, from 2008 until 2012, according to his LinkedIn profile.
He made his way to Calgary on a student visa in 2013 to study for a diploma in business administration at Bow Valley College from 2014 until 2015.
Seemed qualified.
Diversity and qualifications aside I personally feel terrible for the guy, one mistake or bad choice like that and you have to live with it forever. I’m not sure I could live with myself if I caused the deaths and suffering of so many.
Exactly. Who knows what all will come of this and will follow him for ever. He could do time.
He was an illegal immigrant. And now he’s a murderer. By rights he should been hanged already.
Where did you read that he was illegal? Could be, but I did not see that anywhere. It certainly is the kind of detail the CBC would keep covered up.
Oh Kate, is there anything you won’t use as an opportunity to bitch about brown folk?
Somebody is overly sensitive, and it’s not Kate.
You haven’t lived outside of Canada very much have you, say like on the Indian subcontinent where outside of urban areas driving on the roads is extremely hazardous. When I lived in India I had many ‘brown folk’ – as you say – as colleagues. Many of them had lost friends and relatives to traffic accidents.
Unfortunately whether you like it or not when people move continents they DO NOT suddenly become better drivers. People do not suddenly change. Therein lies the rub. Alas politically correct wishful thinking does not change the reality.
Though perhaps you think that the root cause of Mr Sidhu’s appalling driving is the evil white man for inventing cars and trucks in the first place. Still, perhaps our foolish prime minister will offer Mr Sidhu the position of Minister of Transport or perhaps at least help him over the hump with a $10 million award.
I think that the background of the driver has nothing to do with anything and is just a desperate attempt by the post author to shoehorn her bugbear into a tragic incident.
Canada has seen no increase in road hazards with its increase in diversity. I’ve driven in both Edmonton and Vancouver and, incredibly, the latter was actually better.
Heh…so that’s not why Brampton has the highest insurance rates?
Oh, my God. What ignorance about what is on the road and who is driving it! I’ll just say that between Tor. and Mtl on 401, say your prayers every inch of the way. They not only drive without knowing how to read the signs (they’re in English or French), but they also own the transport companies. There will be 2 or 3 new immigrants in the cab and they drive long hours because new immigrant owner can underbid any white Canadian-owned company. Why? He doesn’t have to stick to our old-fashioned white Canadian rules and regulations.
The owner of the Sask. transport should be charged also.
Actually, the owner’s a Sikh from Calgary, running a shoestring trucking firm out of his home. No problem with that, unless he’s hiring seriously unqualified drivers and pushing them to falsify their log books.
Turd worlder is what turd worlder does. Him bringing his values, culture and respect for others to the road is a huge factor.
Turd worlders are often incapable of waiting to enter the bus or elevator before others had a chance to exit. They are incapable of waiting in line in a store without breathing down the neck of the person in front of them. And they bring this attitude with them when they get behind a wheel. No courtesy, no respect just arrogance and stupidity.
“I’ve driven in both Edmonton and Vancouver and, incredibly, the latter was actually better.”
Incredibly either place also got better after you moved away from there.
Motorists in India drive like total maniacs; I’m surprised there aren’t even more traffic accidents.
Without prejudice, based on a media report it does allegedly seem that the company he worked for has had some company naming issues.
Still dont know what happened.
Truck driver ran a stop sign.
But you won’t read that anywhere.
You are missing the point. Accidents happen. They can be tragic, as this one was. However, I cannot recall ANY case, ever, where the identity of the driver at fault was kept from the public for so long. Did the police and media keep his identity a secret BECAUSE he was of multi-culti origin?
THAT is the cause of the complaining here….
Wait for the initial shock to blow over before releasing the name…. until the crash is “yesterday’s news” in the cycle.
SGI came out with new rules for increased truck driver training shortly after the accident but with no mention of why they were suddenly needed.
I guess…if truckers don’t know a big flashing red light….and a big sign that says stop
There have been plenty of discussions here and elsewhere of the quality of drivers coming in from developing countries, including reminders of a fraudulent driving school in Calgary set up to rubberstamp applications. If you don’t like it, find another blog to troll.
The problem is the shortage of drivers due to low pay and terrible working conditions. One company advertises that you will be away from home 7-10 days at a time. As much as I miss truck driving, I presently make about 2X the wages and are home every night in my current profession.
Exactly.
They will only take young, single men willing to live in their trucks and on nearly nothing.
And why? Because people have gotten used to not paying for shipping on all the crap they don’t need that they buy.
You want to put China Inc. out of business? Deport all the illegal immigrants stealing north American trucking jobs and pay north American truckers a wage that will support a family on a single income.
Faced with the full cost of shipping crap cheaply made in China from Vancouver to their hometowns, Canadians will be more likely to buy high-quality products proudly made in Canada or the USA, that doesn’t break or fall apart in a month.
In that case I will gladly not do any of that. I like my cheap foreign made stuff, and it does NOT fall apart in a month. My Samsung TV is going 4 years strong.
The most hilarious part is when robot self-driving trucks render your fantasy obsolete.
Perhaps you should limit your discussions to using data, instead of one-off tragedies.
Kate;
Whatever happened to the story of the truck stopped on the highway in Calgary? Someone slammed into the back of it?
I have a friend who owns a trucking company in Ontario. Yes, the “ethnics”(East Asians) are mostly under qualified and their rigs are sub-standard. And yes, the stories you hear about their “bathroom habits” while driving are true.
This is simply a fact.
Ferlin, and a lot have “attitude” problems. I waited for one to run a red light so I wouldn’t get wiped out. Guy doing about a buck twenty in an 80 zone, had lots of distance to stop, but didn’t even try. I could have cleared if I had my current truck, but possibly not with the one I had at the time. We have on hell of a lot of problems with these clowns driving gravel trucks around here. Had an incident with one just today. They don’t care about others who use the road.
Oh, yah, they like to cut $hitholes in the floor boards for cross country treks
So he was in the country on a student visa … Why was he still around to get a job driving a HUGE rig? I would have thought he should have been required to go home once his visa expired.
Spent time throughout Africa/Middle East/Asia on the roads … Yes, I do question the quality of the driving habits of most.
Did he have a diploma in truck driving, perhaps a work permit
A coupla years back I was sitting in a truck stop in Moose Jaw SK.
A rig pulled up and attempted to back into a line of rigs. Turns out it was Shambu at the controls. He jack-knifed left and right – had to pull ahead a coupla times before he finally got parked. A bit crossways but hey its a big lot.
The problem is these trucks today are largely automatics so you don’t need to know anything about shifting, gearing down or what gear you need to be in on a grade. All you need to do is steer Mahoot.
A naturalized Canadian businessman told me how he had found it difficult to adjust to driving on the prairies. Straight roads, no traffic, why not average 150? That the accused didn’t slow down appreciably for the well marked stop sign indicates gross negligence.
What are the requirements for driving a big-rig in Canada? I know what they are in the US, and “a couple of weeks training” probably wouldn’t cut it.
How many of these issues will come out during this, one of the most high profile trials in Canada should be interesting. CBC will have the most staff to cover it, but most everything is filtered through their post-modernism politically correct lens.
It may turn out to be local radio, or online news, gives the most extensive and uncensored coverage.
RCMP investigation, testimony and Crown Prosecution will be as closely scrutinized by the public, as by the accused’s defence attorney.
One will expect that the RCMP accident investigation team’s testimony will be of a higher standard than that of the RCMP’s firearms expert ,at the Gerald Stanley trial, who, according to reportage, claimed a hangfire could not last more than a fraction of a second. That reflected badly on the entire institution.
Will the Sask. gov’t. announce a series of changes to driver licensing conditions and require the same standards for drivers from out of province? Big question ! And the answer is ???
As lawyers, who practice, in other provinces have to qualify to meet those provincial bar standards there. That is a precedent.
There is a growing intolerance among Canadians for allowing a lowered standard of expectations and performance, for both immigrant and existing populations, by all levels of government.
We use Manitoulin Transport to carry our freight. Mostly good experience and good pricing. But I have some great stories about the East Indian and North African drivers they send sometimes. Some are the best, many the worst. Manitoulin sent me a cheque to cover the damage from the last guy who dropped off some freight and thought he could turn around across 8 acres of manicured grass. He spent several minutes trying to rock himself out of a big hole until I suggested we call a tow truck. He was white, probably Ukrainian.
But I have a real problem here. According to the CBC report (and well documented diagram) the bus appears to have struck the tractor trailer as it had mostly cleared the intersection. This is why the driver was unhurt. I’m sorry but this says something about the driver of the bus as the bus did not really reduce its speed as it entered the intersection. If I was driving and saw a truck running a stop sign I would have slowed down before striking the rear end of the trailer.
A relative of mine, a retired life long career truck driver, when he saw the overhead views of the accident said “The skid marks from both vehicles don’t look right”.
https://media.globalnews.ca/videostatic/508/974/crash%20scene2.jpg
One possible scenario is the driver of the truck blew through the intersection, initially obscured to the bus driver by the trees. By the time the bus saw the truck it would have been too late to stop. He would have clipped the rear of the truck which would have sent the truck into the ditch on the far right of the roadway (which is where the skid marks indicate). If the bus driver over-reacted the bus could have ended up on either the left or right side of the roadway.
Pretty tragic either way. Doesn’t seem right to get a license to drive a tractor and trailer after only two weeks. I wonder if they these drivers loose in rural areas to give them experience before they hit the busier highways?
The trees in the farmyard at the corner obscured the approach of the truck. Above a certain speed the truck could be well into the intersection before the bus driver had time to slow down before striking the rear end of the trailer. I’m curious about the speed the truck driver admits to the investigators and what the technical evidence allowed them to calculate. Perhaps it will come out at the trial. If Mr. Sidhu pleads guilty we might near none of it.
According to a police officer who does these investigations, explaining to me the results from the case that killed someone close to me, they don’t always get enough clear physical evidence to figure it all out, best he could do this time was a range of speed that could have been low enough to be let off with a warning rather than a ticket.
The truck driver would not have seen the bus looking left because of the trees until he was almost into the intersection.
Did anyone notice it took three months to determine what any casual observer could tell simply looking at the photos of the wreck. The truck blew the stop sign and people died. I suspect the real challenge for the RCMP is balancing the political pressure. While young hockey players are too precious by half the guy who caused their death was a member of the protected class. Three months to balance the scales of justice.
precisely.
the ‘generous’ view is the farce see em pee had to make sure very friggin square inch of the scene was photographed and analyzed. they do NOT want the charges tossed on a molecule sized ‘technicality’ by a judgey-judge with a single piece headgear on their head.
re Steve from Rockwood. I learned about truck accident fakers in my early teens, some 5 yrs before I got my license and 10 yrs before I got my first car.
smack into the truck, claim terrible neck injury and collect the settlement.
etc etc.
word travels fast in some commuuuuunities . . . . .
Just like we all knew when it happened: a non-Canadian named Singh diversified a bunch of hockey players because he drove a truck.
Ok, let’s leave the colour, birthplace, and religion of all involved out of it.
Let’s look at the experience of each driver, the physical location, time of incident, estimated speed of vehicles, skid marks, sight lines, etc.
It’s fairly evident, the truck did not stop, hence the charges.
“Let’s leave the colour, birthplace and religion of all involved out of it.”
No can do. They part and parcel of what caused the accident. A non-Canadian kept here on specious circumstances diversified a group of actual Canadians. $20 says he was on the phone to Mumbai at the time of the accident, too. You all want to take the fact that he’s Indian out of the equation while forgetting that we all know who’s driving 85kph down the middle lane in the Lexus, why Bramladesh’s insurance is higher, why we see a truck swerving, weaving and cutting people off that the driver likely has a one-piece mode of headgear and a longer than average beard. Just because you’re afraid to agree or admit that I’m right doesn’t mean I’m wrong.
It means you’re unwilling to riot.
There was a scam going on in Brampton a few years back. People were being given a drivers license without a practical test in return for cash. One of my daughters moved to Brampton for work. Very high insurance rates because of the higher accident rates there.
About 4 years ago a “Singh” t-boned my wife in a 60 km zone. Totaled his car. He immediately got out of his vehicle to apologize to my wife who was badly shaken but otherwise uninjured. Mr. Singh was also first in line to speak to the police. Last we saw of him he was jumping into the front of the tow truck that had his car. About 4 months later we received a letter that he was suing us for $4 million due to his significant injuries, so severe that he could not return to his job as a forklift operator. A year later, another letter, through the insurance companies of course, that their client would settle for $2 million. Yet another year went by and another letter suggesting a settlement of $206,000 would be accepted. This was handled by our insurance company who said things like this take up to 4 years to settle. Then finally, a settlement. No word from our insurance company on what the amount was. The final conversation was that there are groups of people actively engaged in staging accidents in order to collect benefits with a hint that the “medical system” is in on it. That’s my conspiracy theory of the day.
“They part and parcel of what caused the accident. ”
No they’re not. You’re obsession with those details does not make them relevant to driving.
UnMe, nobody here gives a shit what you think.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMyYHv-vnGU
I still love driving. I have driven millions of kilometers, mostly in Canada, mostly in company sedans, a few commercial trucks but nothing bigger than a 5-ton. You can sprinkle in a Corvette and a few Camaros and other toys in my spirited youth and I have still managed to maintain an impeccable driving record. On top of that, I have spent much of my working life in warehousing, having managed two different ones before hitting the ripe old age of 20.
I like to think I know truck drivers, having interacted with countless thousands on highways and loading docks, so here are some of my thoughts….
Like many blue-collar professions, there is a wide variety of competence in it’s members. What used to be a decent rule-of-thumb is that the reputation of the company usually dictates the quality of the drivers. When it comes to independents, the condition of their rig often also relates to the amount of care and attention they put into their driving, too. I have seen talented truckers of every race and I have seen shitty truckers of every race. Well, except Oriental. For the life of me, and this includes working in Hongcouver, I cannot remember a single Chinese driver of a big rig. Lots of them terrorizing others in cube vans, even 5 tons and the like, but very scarce with the semis. …. thank god.
To that end, I have a theory on why the Chinese generally make such horrid drivers, and it is cultural! City driving requires social skills as much as any other, eye contact being key. Ever rolled up to a 4-way stop at the same time as the average Chinese driver? Good luck. Again, there are examples of every race/gender/culture being godawful drivers, but let’s face reality, the Chinese did not earn their infamous reputation by accident. They earned it by generally failing to be attentive to the environment around them while behind the wheel and thus being almost oblivious of traffic and other factors .
As per Indian and Arab truck drivers, I have dealt with many, some very talented and more than a few that should find another career. Like it or not, they are quickly becoming stewards of the industry, much as they already have with the taxi industry. Just try driving in any of their countries and you will soon learn we shouldn’t be allowing immigrants on our roadways until they have fully purged their old ways.
All that said, on my driving trips between BC and Alberta, I usually leave in the middle of the night specifically so I share the road with truckers, not the low-skilled twits that dominate the highways by day.
It was stupid for the RCMP to release the fact there are charges without full disclosure as to the specifics of the investigation. All they have accomplished is to ramp up the already high level of speculation. I want to know how professional the bus driver’s actions were, too.
Finally, I just remembered the story I read about here many months ago about a fatal trucking accident E. of Calgary. I believe one trucker slammed into the back of another semi while it was apparently stopped in the slow lane of the Trans Canada. Anyone else remember this, or more importantly, heard if an investigation was ever completed?
I think Kate’s point should be well taken. If it was any other truck driver except a new Canadian, we would know everything about the truck driver including seeing a published picture from his high school year book complete with future plans, likes and dislikes.
Nothing must distract from the official narrative that every immigrant provides a net benefit to Canada.
https://lfpress.com/news/local-news/2017-was-especially-deadly-in-ontario-opp
Crashes involving transport trucks also hit a 10-year high, with 91 people killed, up from 77. Last year’s big rig crashes claimed the lives of 15 truck drivers, three truck passengers and four pedestrians, while the other 69 people were in other vehicles.
Ontario highways are getting worse, OPP were suppose to implement a plan to get bad drivers and unsafe trucks off the roads. I know they did a one day blitz got some 60 trucks off the road, but more needs doing as often it’s not the truck driver that pays the price of loss of life.
Blowing a stop sign is not dangerous driving. Blowing a stop sign while texting might not be dangerous driving. Blowing a stop sign while texting and driving 130 km/hr – Bingo! All they have to do is prove it – and they just might. I’m not sure how sending some ignorant immigrant to prison for 5 years will make the world a better place – but it is a political solution to what has become a political crime.
how ’bout dat.
all them ads fer truck drivers. a new career beckons!!
how do you get those 18 wheelers in reverse?
I’ll get back to ya in 2 weeks time.