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Princeton mayor calls for changes after semi-truck strikes school bus with kids inside

Semi-truck hits school bus

Princeton's Mayor is adding his voice to a call for dash cams to be installed in all transport trucks after a loaded semi-truck struck a school bus early Wednesday morning.

According to local detachment commander Sgt. Rob Hughes, an officer on patrol was in the area of Old Hedley Road and Weyerhaeuser Mill before being flagged down by a school bus driver and semi-truck driver.

The bus was travelling westbound towards Highway 5A on Old Hedley Road before the semi-truck rolled through the intersection with the mill road and collided with the bus.

"The driver reported that he looked eastbound and the sun was in his eyes and drove into the bus," Hughes said.

"There's damage to the grill of their semi-truck, damage to the side of the bus and then to one of the wheels and rims which made the bus undriveable. So it had to be towed and repaired. "

There were no injuries reported for the six students or the driver who was on the bus at the time.

"One of them was shaken up pretty bad and upset. So all the parents had come and got the kids," Hughes said.

"Thank goodness, no injuries to any of the kids because we all know that there are no seat belts on school buses."

Princeton Mayor Spencer Coyne got a call from one of his kids about the crash and came to pick them up, sharing the frustration of the lack of safety on the road.

"We witnessed during the atmospheric river event the number of incidents with transport trucks, and yesterday was an example of some of that same carelessness exhibited by some of the drivers out there," he told Castanet Thursday morning.

"There's a call from Mayor Ward Stamer out of Barriere requesting the province that all commercial transport trucks have dash cams, and I am strongly in support of this.

"I think when we have people using excuses like the sun was in my eyes, we need to know the full picture because those were kids that were involved in that accident."

Hughes said his recommendation would be for Weyerhaeuser Mill to put a stop sign on their road.

"Clearly people are rolling that intersection and it is uncontrolled. So this stop sign would be the responsibility of Weyerhaeuser to put it on their property because it's their driveway and just kind of put the protection of motorists and their drivers leaving that facility just to kind of confirm that you should be stopping there."

Charges are pending for failing to yield right-of-way for the driver of the semi-truck.

School District No. 58 Secretary-Treasurer CFO Dylan Richardson said that the district is thankful no one was injured in the crash.

"We actually are in the process of looking at and refreshing our policies and part of that is our transportation policy. And so once we update that, we will be looking at applying that across the district, not just in Princeton," he said, adding those changes were already underway and are not a response to this specific crash.

"We have emergency procedures in place for events like this that we follow. Communication is also very important to us well, as well. So just making sure all of our families are fully informed."

Weyerhaeuser Mill was not immediately available for comment.



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