Toronto — The Ministry of Transportation recently released Ontario Road Safety Annual Report (ORSAR) reports that the province ranks first amoung all jurisdictions in North America for road safety, recording the lowest number of road fatalities in the last 68 years.

The MTO is crediting the safety score to a number of initiatives, including Ontario’s speed limiter law that came fully in effect in 2009.

Data from 2009 shows an improvement over 2008, with a recorded 564 fatalities, the lowest since 1944 and the lowest rate per licensed drivers — ever.

Large truck fatalities dropped 24 percent from 2008, and from 1990 to 2009, large truck fatalities dropped 50 percent despite a 59 percent increase in the number of registered trucks during the same period.

The Ontario Trucking Association, who lobbied for speed limiters, said they were pleased to see the positive results.

“The report confirms once again that truck drivers and trucks as a class are the safest drivers and vehicles on the road," said David Bradley, president and CEO of OTA.

The OTA, along with the Canadian Trucking Alliance (CTA) is now advocating for the mandatory use of electronic onboard recorders (EOBRs) on all trucks where the driver is currently required to maintain a paper log book.

They would also like to see a national manufacturing standard that would require all new heavy trucks to be equipped with electronic stability control technology.

Some other stats from the report:

• Of all fatal collisions involving large trucks, the truck driver was not driving properly in just 27 per cent of the incidents, down from 36 per cent in 2008.
• Fatal collisions involving trucks represent 17.6 percent of total fatal collisions on Ontario roads in 2009, down from 20.6 in 2008, 22.2 in 2007.
• Alcohol was a factor in fatal large truck collisions in only 1 percent of incidents; vehicle defects were present in zero percent of incidents (2% in 2008).
• 13349 trucks were involved in collisions in 2009, representing just 3.3 percent of vehicles involved in collisions.