WESTBORO BUS CRASH: Defence witness calls fatal Westboro bus crash entirely foreseeable “In our opinion, a safety audit ought to have identified the potential risks posed by the Transitway shelters to double-decker buses.
Author of the article: Andrew Duffy
Publishing date: May 04, 2021 • May 4, 2021 • 3 minute read Aissatou Diallo walks to the Ottawa courthouse in late March. Photo by Tony Caldwell /Postmedia
Article content
An accident reconstruction expert says the Westboro bus crash was “entirely foreseeable” given the design of the Transitway and the danger posed to double-decker buses by its stations.
“In our opinion, a safety audit ought to have identified the potential risks posed by the Transitway shelters to double-decker buses,” engineer Richard Lamoureux concluded in his April 2021 report on the crash, prepared at the request of OC Transpo driver Aissatou Diallo’s defence team.
Article content
Aissatou Diallo, the rookie OC Transpo driver on trial for dangerous driving causing death, will not take the stand in her own defence.
The Crown rested its case against Diallo last week without calling a single Ottawa police reconstruction officer or the lead investigator, Alain Boucher, to testify.
We apologize, but this video has failed to load.
Try refreshing your browser, or Westboro bus crash trial: Diallo won t testify in her defence Back to video
Diallo, a 44-year-old single mom of four, is on trial for three counts of dangerous driving causing death and 35 counts of dangerous driving causing bodily harm. She had only driven Route 269 twice before she slammed a double-decker bus into a steel-framed bus shelter at Westboro Station around 3:50 p.m. on Jan. 11, 2019.
Article content
Ottawa Crown attorneys prosecuting the rookie OC Transpo driver for the deadly 2019 Westboro Station crash rested their case on Friday without calling the lead investigator or the police reconstruction officers to the stand.
In fact, one of the Ottawa police reconstruction officers was on the original witness list, but was removed by the Crown earlier this week.
We apologize, but this video has failed to load.
Try refreshing your browser, or WESTBORO BUS CRASH: Crown rests case without calling lead investigator or reconstruction officers to the stand Back to video
Det. Alain Boucher, the lead investigator, was also not called as a Crown witness and was asked to leave the courtroom early on in the trial to protect the authenticity of his testimony should he be called to the stand later on.
OTTAWA An OC Transpo operator driving a bus behind the one that crashed at Westboro station in January 2019 recalled what he saw and the moments after the fatal crash in court on Wednesday. Brian Nesbitt says people came to his bus for first aid kits and he called for help as the magnitude of the crash became clearer. They said it was really serious on the far side and to call in and to tell them how bad it was for people at the top…I called back to tell them it was even more severe, Nesbitt said. Aissatou Diallo has pleaded not guilty to three counts of dangerous driving causing death and 35 counts of dangerous driving causing bodily harm.
Article content
The OC Transpo instructor who trained rookie driver Aissatou Diallo for a day in July 2018 well remembers complimenting her for conquering hardship as an immigrant single mom who had the courage to try something new and far removed from cleaning toilets at McDonald’s.
But Phillip Latrille has no specific recollection of how Diallo did on her emergency-brake lesson.
We apologize, but this video has failed to load.
Try refreshing your browser, or WESTBORO BUS CRASH: Instructor can t recall how driver did on emergency-brake lesson, didn t make notes Back to video
The instructor took the stand as a Crown witness at Diallo’s trial Wednesday, and, while he could recall detailed conversations with the trainee, he couldn’t remember how she did on her emergency-brake lesson.