A trucking company that dropped a modular home off a dolly onto Highway 97, Wednesday, is claiming road rage caused the situation to happen.
On Wednesday, June 11, D.B.I. Transport was hauling a 14-foot wide modular home from Enderby to Vancouver Island when an apparent road rage incident appeared to take place between two vehicles southbound on Highway 97 north of Kelowna, causing a D.B.I. truck driver to swerve, forcing the home off the truck and into the right lane.
Kelowna RCMP confirmed they are investigating multiple infractions under the Motor Vehicle Act and "are actively investigating all avenues of the investigation."
D.B.I. Transport made a Facebook post about Wednesday's incident with dashcam footage from its driver's truck, showing two vehicles playing "cat and mouse" on the highway. In the videos, the two vehicles can be seen swerving in and out of both lanes, stopping and starting. DBI's pilot driver, the person driving the 'wide-load' truck behind the transport truck, saw a piece of drywall fly out of the back of a one-tonne flatbed striking a vehicle behind it
Both the pilot and the truck driver communicated with each other about the situation.
"My driver had backed off, thinking that they're going pull over because he's knowing that the drywall had struck the vehicle," said D.B.I. Transport operations manager Brayden Forburg told simplymastery on Thursday. "They kind of went back and forth for a little bit. My driver backed right off."
The truck driver was forced to switch lanes multiple times because of the ongoing incident between the two other drivers. After the truck driver got into the left lane, the other two vehicles swerved in front of the truck, both appearing to slam on their brakes, forcing the truck driver to switch back into the right lane.
"My driver, his defensive driving actions kicked in, and they're all trained to make sure that they don't take and injure anybody if something like this is to arise, so he took and made a very harsh brake application and swerved last minute into the right-hand shoulder and lane and come to a complete stop," explained Forburg. "At that point, the dolly at the back end was all chained down, secured to the house with chains and our brackets, the outriggers. Unfortunately, with that amount of force exerted on everything and the swerving action, the frame of the house broke and allowed the dolly to slide out. And that's when the house landed on the highway."
As this happened, the duelling drivers drove off "like nothing happened," Forburg said.
The truck driver contacted the Kelowna RCMP about the incident right away, said Forburg. The dashcam footage has been sent to the RCMP, who are now looking for additional video or witnesses to come forward and reference file number 2025-32644.
Forburg said a witness to the incident phoned them Thursday morning, commending the DBI driver on his skills given the circumstances of the situation and told the company the dashcam footage doesn't do the incident justice as it was a lot worse to see in person. This witness was one of the first vehicles behind the scene and also confirmed to Warburg she had given a statement to the RCMP as well.
Forburg explained his company's drivers often witness road rage incidents, stating it is becoming "too common."
"It's definitely ramping up. It just seems like they (passenger vehicles) don't have the knowledge of what can happen," said Forburg.
He added that the D.B.I. Transport wanted to get the video of the incident out to the public so those who take to the road can understand the potential dangers of driving next to large trucks like semi-trailers.
"(We want) people to think twice about what the actions they do, have potential consequences or injuries to other people or themselves."
Forburg noted the incident could've been a lot worse.
"It's not something that you can fool around with and play cat and mouse in front of somebody and expect a big truck to be able to stop because that could very well have ended up with both of those guys being injured or severely injured or even killed," said Forburg. "We can't just manoeuvre as quick as any truck...you can't just make that rash decision because there could be a vehicle in your blind spot, so there's a lot of risks involved when somebody (drives like that), endangering more than just themselves."
Forburg added it takes a fully-loaded truck on average six times longer to be able to stop than a regular car.
After reporting the incident, D.B.I. Transport came up with a plan to lift the modular home from the highway back onto the dolly, which included hiring a crane. Several hours later on Wednesday, the home was back on the truck and re-secured, taken back to Enderby, for the damages to be assessed. The extent of the damage is not known at this time.
"Unfortunately it's going to be quite a bill for the damages, but all I can say is thankfully my driver did what he did and did not take and run into the back of either of those guys and potentially seriously injure them," added Forburg.
WorkSafeBC also attended the scene on Wednesday, but could only monitor the situation as D.B.I. Transport is under a different jurisdiction since it is a federal company.
The incident affected traffic southbound between Lake Country and Kelowna from 7:45 a.m. to about 2:30 p.m.
