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Mothers of N.B. students killed in crash lobby against use of passenger vans

It's been four years since the crash of a passenger van killed seven players on a New Brunswick high-school basketball team and a teacher's wife, but the mothers of two players are still fighting to ban use of the vans to transport students.

Isabelle Hains and Ana Acevedo, whose 17-year-old sons died in the crash in Bathurst, N.B. on Jan. 12, 2008, have been lobbying since the tragedy to curb the 15-passenger vehicles as unfit transportation for people.

Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Quebec outlawed the vans for school use following a coroner's inquest into the crash.

Now Acevedo and Hains are asking the New Brunswick Energy and Utilities Board to prevent Advance Shuttle Services of Prince Edward Island from using 15-passenger vans to shuttle university students, CBC News reported Tuesday.

"It is incredible to us that, on the eve of the fourth anniversary of our sons' deaths, the EUB would even consider the possibility of allowing Advanced Shuttle Services Ltd. to provide a lower level of safety for inter-city transportation services targeting students by using 15-passenger vans," the two mothers said in a letter to the board.

"This is a public safety issue and the EUB cannot ignore the fact that in New Brunswick, of all places, there is a heightened awareness and sensitivity to the use of 15 passenger vans for transporting groups of people, especially students. The Boys in Red tragedy is a constant reminder that we should expect nothing less than the best when transporting human beings."

Advanced Shuttle Services, based in Summerside, P.E.I., has applied to set up daily bus service between New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island. Owner David Anderson said he hoped to have the service running by mid-March. It already operates between Halifax and the island.

A 15-passenger van carrying members of Bathurst High School's basketball team was heading home from a game in Moncton when it collided head-on with a transport truck. Two players and the team coach, who was driving, survived the crash.

Hains told Postmedia News she and Acevedo consider the vans dangerous because they were designed as cargo vehicles, not for passenger transportation. They lack safety features such as reinforced steel roofs and crash-proof windows, she said.

Hains said an alternative exists, called the Multi-Function Activity Bus, which is built to the same safety standard as yellow school buses.

A spokesman for the New Brunswick board told Postmedia the agency will review Advanced's application based on comments it receives and could hold a public hearing next month.

Meanwhile, Transport Canada is conducting a safety review of 15-passenger vans, with results expected later this year.

Hains and Acevedo have been outspoken guardians of the memories of those killed in the accident. Last fall they attempted unsuccessfully to block production of a CBC television movie about the tragedy by asking federal and provincial officials to deny funding for the project.