Likely the end of trucking company accused of hitting overpasses

The Metro Vancouver trucking company that has been accused of hitting multiple overpasses will no longer be able to operate in B.C., and a lawyer specializing in driving infractions tells The Leader Spirit this is likely the end of the road for Chohan Freight Forwarders.

The Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure dropped the bombshell Friday morning, announcing it has cancelled the company’s licence in the interest of safety.

While some might think the business owners could just start up again under a different name, Kyla Lee with Acumen Law says this wouldn’t be legal.

To run a trucking company in Canada requires National Safety Council (NSC) registration, Lee says. To get that, she says company directors are checked for infractions, which would easily identify if they have a suspended licence.

She says trying to be sneaky and work around using someone else’s name likely wouldn’t end well.

“If there was an investigation that revealed that that person was essentially acting as a shell to facilitate these people sort of working around the licence restriction, then they could potentially face criminal charges if there was some sort of element of fraud that was going on to obtain the licence,” Lee said.

“And even if they wanted to have family members do it and then use these individuals as drivers within the company, each individual driver must also have an NSC driver profile associated to them based on their driver’s licence, so your identity is going to be easily confirmed.”

Criminal charges in such an example would be consistent with trends in the province to come down hard on unsafe driving conduct, Lee says. She says it makes sense, as the fallout from bad driving costs taxpayers a lot each year.