About 54% of Halifax Transit collisions were preventable, data shows

CITYnews halifax / By Natasha O’Neill

There have been thousands of collisions involving Halifax Transit buses since 2020 and new data presented to city council shows half were preventable.

The report to Tuesday’s meeting indicates that there were 4,281 crashes involving buses between 2020 and 2024, of which 2,336 were deemed preventable. The rest were dubbed non-preventable, meaning the operator driving the bus was not able to take action to prevent the collision.

A preventable collision means the driver could have used defensive driving techniques to avoid the situation, even if there were errors by other road users.

Consistently, the report shows that there were more preventable collisions in the last five years than non-preventable. The majority of the crashes with buses involved other vehicles, with the second most common incident being collisions with other objects.

Incidents with other buses made up at least 80 of the crashes each year.

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The report to council was prompted by the death of a 24-year-old woman who was struck by a bus on Spring Garden Road in October 2024. She was one of 14 people who were hit by a bus last year in the city, the data in the report notes.

Councillors at the time indicated they were concerned with the number of collisions being reported with buses, and hoped to have a “baseline idea” of the number of crashes they are involved in. The majority of collisions with buses resulted in no injuries.

Data from Transport Canada shows the national four-year average for collisions involving an injury per million of kilometres travelled, and the report states Halifax is above that.

“Compared to regular vehicle traffic, buses have considerably higher exposure to hazards due to operating in higher-density traffic areas with a greater presence of pedestrians, cyclists, intersections and the associated risks created from making frequent stops, turns and interactions with passengers attempting to board or alight,”” it ” it reads.

Regional staff indicated in comments that strengthening existing hiring strategies, further tests and providing ongoing training could help lower the preventable crashes.