The Ontario Truckers Association vows to work alongside the Ontario Provincial Police to address a series of fatal collisions involving transport trucks.

The OPP put transport drivers on notice after laying charges in three horrific collisions involving big rigs that claimed the lives of six people including an Amherstburg mother and her son.

OPP Commissioner Vince Hawkes says two of the collisions occurred on Highway 401, one near Port Hope, Ont., on Aug. 3, and the other in Chatham-Kent, Ont., on July 30. The third occurred on Highway 48 in Georgina, Ont., on July 27.

Hawkes says two people were killed in each of the collisions in which it's alleged a transport truck crashed into traffic that was stopped or had slowed down due to road construction or a collision.

In the crash in Chatham-Kent on Highway 401, a westbound tractor trailer collided with five vehicles which were stopped on the highway due to a separate motor vehicle collision. One of the vehicles involved was a Chevrolet Sierra pick-up truck carrying four passengers.  

Two passengers traveling in the pick-up, Lacie Brundritt, 42, and Kyle Brundritt, 14, of Amherstburg, were pronounced dead at the scene.

The OPP have charged Manjit Parmar, 52, of Brampton,   with two counts of dangerous operation of a motor vehicle causing death and dangerous operation of a motor vehicle cause bodily harm.

Hawkes says the details mirror a fourth collision on May 11 on Highway 401 near Kingston, Ont., in which three men and a woman died when their vehicle was struck from behind by a transport truck in a construction zone. Charges have already been laid in that incident.

There was another deadly crash on the 401. Two transport trucks and a dump truck collided near Cambridge Friday morning, killing one of the drivers.

Hawkes says the OPP is "putting drivers on notice" that it will pursue every investigative avenue to hold at-fault drivers accountable to the full extent of the law.

“Each of these incidents occurred from inattentive commercial truck driver slamming into the line of either slowed or stopped traffic” says Chatham-Kent OPP Const. Jay Denorer. “This is driver inattention at its worst.”

So far this year, the OPP says officers have responded to 5,000 collisions involving tractor trailers. 67 people have died.

The Ontario Truckers Association blames a small number of truck drivers who fail to follow the rules.

“It’s so preventable, especially when it comes to distracted driving” says Marco Beghetto, the vice president of Communications for the OTA.

The association is launching an awareness campaign to better educate drivers, and raise awareness about the dangers of distracted driving to help prevent fatal collisions involving transport trucks.