Westboro bus crash driver likely should not have driven double-decker, ministry tells inquest
Aissatou Diallo was involved in collision one month before crash that killed 3
The OC Transpo driver involved in the 2019 collision that left three passengers dead probably should never have been put behind the wheel of a double-decker given her level of experience, an official with Ontario's Ministry of Transportation says.
Those comments from Lisa Venier, who works at the ministry's carrier sanctions and investigations office, came on the third day of a coroner's inquest into the Westboro station bus crash.
Venier also spoke out against allowing bus drivers — and not their level of driving experience — determine what types of buses they're assigned to, as she was told was the case when investigating the crash.
"It shouldn't be that the employee gets to choose what they do because of their seniority. It should always be based on skill and it should always be what is the safest thing to do," Venier told the inquest on Friday.
The fact-finding deep dive is asking a jury of five civilians to hear testimony from more than a dozen witnesses and to recommend ways to prevent calamities like the one that happened Jan. 11, 2019.
That afternoon, an OC Transpo double-decker carrying 85 passengers slammed into the steel overhang of the Westboro Transitway bus shelter.
Three people — Judy Booth, Bruce Thomlinson and Anja Van Beek — died in the crash. Many others were injured, triggering a flurry of lawsuits.
While the city accepted civil responsibility for the crash, the bus driver, Aissatou Diallo, was charged with 38 counts of dangerous driving causing death or bodily harm. She was acquitted in a judge-only trial in 2021.
Diallo had worked for OC Transpo for about six months at the time of the crash. She'd also been involved in a previous collision the month before, and only had 55 hours of experience driving double-deckers before the Westboro collision.
'The drivers get to pick their work'
The Ministry of Transportation was among the agencies that investigated the Westboro crash.
Venier told the inquest she met with OC Transpo officials four months later, and then again in February 2020, to oversee the transit agency's response to the crash.
The discussion turned to who was responsible that day for assigning drivers to buses, Venier said.
"'The drivers get to pick their work.' [That] was exactly how it was stated to me," she said.
"When I asked them what that meant, they said that the drivers get to pick which vehicle and which route they prefer. And this process is dependent on their seniority, which means that the higher the seniority, the first pick they get — and it must match the hours that they work."
That practice stems from OC Transpo's collective agreement with Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) Local 279, she added.
"I have never seen that," said Venier, a 29-year veteran of her office.
Venier said OC Transpo was asked if management could "override" driver preference, and that the agency said it didn't happen "often."
Since double-deckers are taller and weigh more than regular buses, "you would think it would take a lot more experience to drive [one]," she said.
It was "concerning," Venier said, that Diallo was a new driver and had been involved in a previous collision.
"She probably never should have been in that vehicle," Venier said.
The cause of Diallo's previous collision in December 2018, which involved an articulated single-decker and black ice, was found to be operator error and a failure to adjust speed to road conditions.
After she was cleared to return to work in the days before the Westboro crash, Diallo alternated between driving articulated and double-decker buses, according to a record of some of her work experience at OC Transpo.
Venier suggested new drivers should first be exposed to non-articulated single-deckers before moving on to other bus types.
"Make sure that they're doing the easy routes and the routes where they're going to get the most exposure and experience," she said.
Union lawyer pushes back
John McLuckie, the lawyer representing ATU Local 279, pushed back against the idea that Diallo was inexperienced.
Diallo would have had additional hours driving double-deckers during her training, he said.
"When someone is newly trained on a bus, would you agree with me that it stands to reason that their skill set is probably highest immediately after their training?" McLuckie asked.
Venier couldn't say, but another ministry official who testified, Sean Doussept, disagreed.
"As a regulator, that would not be my understanding until you can take that training and you marry it up to the experience that's needed for the operation of the vehicle," Doussept said.
WATCH | Looking back on the crash and its lingering impacts:
Venier conceded she had no specific insight into how buses were allocated at the garage, nor did she ask about factors like fleet availability.
She was also not aware that other transit bodies, including the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC), "[allow] their operators to select their work by seniority," as McLuckie put it.
"Did they explain to you that the design of a daily piece of work that a driver can select is exclusively within the authority of OC Transpo?" he asked.
"No, that did not come up," Venier said.
After her Dec. 18 collision, Diallo undertook refresher training and was declared ready to drive buses again, McLuckie pointed out.
"I believe there was an issue regarding [a] heavy foot, but yes, they did allow her back in the bus," Venier said.
The speed limit for buses approaching Westboro station was 50 km/h. An expert is expected to testify at the inquest that Diallo's bus was travelling between 27 and 53 km/h when it hit the overhang.
Diallo herself is among those scheduled to testify over the coming weeks — although the inquest heard on Friday morning that she had not yet responded to a summons to testify.
The inquest will continue Monday with testimony from a chief safety officer whose position was created after the crash.
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