When traffic police arrive to investigate a crash, they will soon have more tools and training akin to those investigating crime scenes. This region is the test site for applying the Electronic Major Case Management (EMCM) system - a set of programs and protocols already in use for many police scenarios - to traffic cases.
For four days, this week, North District RCMP headquarters in Prince George is hosting a workshop for more than 20 police specialists in traffic enforcement. Half of them are from our own region, half of them come from other police regions across the province.
Together they are learning how to input their data from major crashes into the EMCM system, and use it to streamline the case for deeper investigation and more effective court testimony.
The RCMP's top traffic cop in the North, Insp. Eric Brewer, along with Staff Sgt. Pat McTiernan, Staff Sgt. Gord Flewelling and other senior traffic Mounties, have spent years preparing to implement this new program and the change in thinking required to bring it to life.
"This course moves RCMP Traffic Services one step closer to treating fatal and serious injury crashes like homicides," said McTiernan.
Brewer said, "If a person goes down to the bar and drinks excessively, then drives home, I don't see that as any different than someone who moves through a neighbourhood randomly fireing a gun. You may not hit anyone, but the risk for fatality and injury is the same. All it is, is a different weapon."
Brewer also said the aftermath of the two scenarios is the same.
"A murder is no more traumatizing to the surviving loved ones than telling them the death was caused by a car instead of a gun or a knife. Those feelings are no different, and it is ludicrous to think that one is more important than the other."
Two main events compelled the North District traffic managers to act. One was a Supreme Court of Canada ruling that solidified their own views of death and injury in the wreckage of vehicles. In Regina versus Bernshaw, the Court said: "Every year, drunk driving leaves a terrible trail of death, injury, heartbreak and destruction. From the point of view of numbers alone, it has a far greater impact on Canadian society than any other crime. In terms of the deaths and serious injuries resulting in hospitalization, drunk driving is clearly the crime which causes the most significant social loss to the country."
The second pivotal circumstance was close to home: the 1997 death of 100 Mile House fire chief Bob Paterson, killed en route to an emergency when the fire truck lost control on icy roads and struck a logging truck.
Brewer said the investigation was as thorough as one would expect if the victim died due to suspected foul play, and Mounties eventually came to a surprising discovery.
"It took us two years of investigation to solve the riddle," he said. "For two years a driver was blaming himself for that collision, but we eventually discovered he had nothing to do with it. It was a mechanical issue. The solenoids on the front axle's anti-lock braking system had been installed backwards - the left solenoid was put on the right and the right was put on the left. It was that simple."
The highest levels of the RCMP agreed with North District's assertions that these type of circumstances needed the full power of the force's best investigational data systems. Many of these crashes were generating so much investigational material it could fill a small room. If a lawyer, or judge, or another investigator needed a piece of information, it would have to be retrieved manually from the piles of boxes.
"[ECMC] can cut down to minutes what was taking days," said Brewer.
"These new procedures and processes will soon be utilized throughout the province, providing better documented, more organized and more efficient investigations for the
courts," McTiernan added.
The crashes at issue are not only important due to the peace of mind for the loved ones and surviving victims, said the Mounties behind this initiative. The auto manufacturing industry, the road engineering industry, the insurance industry, the health-care system, the driving training industry, were just some of the sectors depending on accurate crash analysis in order to make the public as safe as possible.
Northern B.C.'s police will be expected to lead the province in doing so.
