Multiple trucking violations by Humboldt semi driver noted in government report

MELFORT, Sask. – A Saskatchewan government report says the driver of a semi-truck should not have been on the road the day he flew through a stop sign and caused a crash with the Humboldt Broncos team bus.

The report filed during the sentencing hearing for Jaskirat Singh Sidhu notes 51 violations of federal trucking regulations on drivers’ hours and 19 violations of Saskatchewan trip inspection rules.

It includes the 11 days prior to the April 6, 2018, crash at a rural intersection that killed 16 people and injured 13 others.

“If Jaskirat Singh Sidhu had been stopped and inspected on April 6, 2018, prior to the incident he would have been placed under a 72-hour out-of-service declaration … preventing him from operating a commercial vehicle,” says the report.

The document is signed by two senior Saskatchewan government officials and is included in the RCMP’s forensic collision reconstruction report.

It expresses concerns about the distances Singh was driving as well as the amount of time he took off to rest.

The report notes that if Singh had accurately documented his time at work on April 1 it ‘would have resulted in the driver being in violation of the maximum on-duty time of 14 hours for the day.”

The report says questions remain about what happened the day of the crash.

“We have strong concerns regarding the timelines of Jaskirat Singh Sidhu’s day on April 6, 2018, as there are unanswered questions as a result of the incomplete log on that day,” it says.

“The identified mileage and distances required to travel to the locations identified in the log and known locations also cause concerns.”

Sidhu had been driving for about a month before the crash occurred.

The owner of the Calgary-based trucking company, Sukhmander Singh of Adesh Deol Trucking, faces eight charges relating to non-compliance with federal and provincial safety regulations in the months before the crash.

They include seven charges under the federal Motor Vehicle Transport Act: two counts of failing to maintain logs for drivers’ hours, three counts of failing to monitor the compliance of a driver under safety regulations, and two counts of having more than one daily log for any day.