Crash avoidance systems will be mandatory on all new trucks, buses sold in Canada

Emergency crews respond to the scene of a transport truck rollover on Highway 427 Monday July 3, 2017. (Tom Podolec /CP24)

OTTAWA -- New trucks and buses sold in Canada will have to include crash-avoidance technology under newly approved federal regulations.

Electronic stability control technology on school and heavy buses will become mandatory in June as governments aim to reduce collisions and prevent rollovers.

The crash avoidance systems will now be required on all new truck tractors, just as they have been since 2011 on cars and light-duty vehicles sold in Canada and the United States.

Transport Minister Marc Garneau says the new measures unveiled today should not only make trucks and buses safer, but also have a trickle-down effect of making the roads safer as well.

Transport Canada research shows that these systems can reduce by 29 per cent crashes where a light-duty vehicle loses control, preventing hundreds of injuries and deaths.

Similar research in the United States suggests that electronic stability control systems could prevent 35 per cent of single-vehicle collisions.

Garneau says trucks and buses will also be required by 2020 to have electronic logging devices so commercial truck and bus drivers don't spend too much time behind the wheel, risking driver fatigue.

Any similar devices already in use will have be replaced by 2022 with equipment that meets new safety code technical standards.