Blue Jays fly to first place page 19
Rescued from New Orleans, dog gives back page 22
Wednesday June 23, 2010 Serving Surrey and North Delta www.surreyleader.com
New rules to keep unsafe trucks off road
27-year-old facing multiple charges
Arrest in crash that killed elderly couple
But no guarantee they’ll stay parked for long
by Sheila Reynolds
by Jeff Nagel MORE THAN a dozen family members A CRACKDOWN on unsafe heavy trucks first promised by the
provincial government more than a year ago is now being implemented, but penalties won’t be as stiff as previously promised. The transportation ministry originally contemplated a “truck jail” similar to what Ontario uses to impound big rigs. But Victoria is instead mandating commercial vehicle inspectors to seize licence plates of trucks with critical defects and hold them until repairs are made and owners present a plan assuring proper maintenance and monitoring. That’s in line with recommendations made by an industry-led advisory panel in April of 2009. At that time, then-transportation minister Kevin Falcon said the changes would let authorities hold seized plates for 30 days to effectively put trucks off the road and deprive owners of revenue as a penalty. But provisions that took Commercial vehicle effect June 14 won’t keep inspectors and police can trucks out of action for any seize the licence plate of a specific period of time. truck with serious safety Trucking firms will be able violations under a new to get busted rigs back on the provincial program. road as fast as they can be repaired and jump through the paperwork hoops. That’s considerably weaker than safety provisions in Ontario, which impounds violators a minimum 15 days and up to two months, as well as applying hefty fines. B.C. Trucking Association president and CEO Paul Landry, whose organization helped craft the recommendations, said it will take some time and effort to make repairs and satisfy government officials a faulty rig is roadworthy. “This is the sort of thing that’s not going to happen in the next day or next couple of days,” he said. “They will lose revenue from that vehicle for that period of time.” The province is also pledging to tighten enforcement of privately run designated inspection facilities that sometimes pass trucks
Chilliwack rocks Whalley
BOAZ JOSEPH / THE LEADER
Chilliwack frontman Bill Henderson belts out a tune at the all-day Whalley Community Festival on Saturday afternoon at North Surrey Recreation Centre.
See TRUCKS / Page 5
of 61-year-old Dilbag Singh Badh and his wife, Bakhshish Kaur Badh, 60, filed into a room at Surrey RCMP headquarters Friday morning to hear the news they’d been waiting for for nearly two years. Someone had been arrested and charged in the 2008 hit-and-run death of the elderly couple. Several of them wearing black T-shirts with a photo of the married couple with text reading “Vehicular Negligence = Murder,” the family and media heard that a 27-year-old man Bakhshish and was in custody Dilbag Badh. and facing multiple charges in connection to the fatal crash. Ravinder Singh Binning appeared in court last Friday on two counts of dangerous operation of a motor vehicle causing death, one count of dangerous operation of a motor vehicle causing bodily harm and one count of failure to stop at the scene of an accident. It was July 12, 2008 when a speeding white 2006 Acura TL side-swiped a black Chevrolet Camaro then rearended a BMW on 128 Street and 85 Avenue. Dilbag, Bakhshish and their daughters, Rupi and Varinder, were inside the BMW. They were returning home from a wedding rehearsal for Rupi,
See HIT AND RUN / Page 3
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