People in the province can’t help but have an eerie feeling over a rash of fatal crashes on the Trans-Canada – with the scenes relatively close together. Three, resulting in five deaths, occurred in Pictou County and one last week was a bit farther east, in Antigonish County.
The incidents are still under investigation, thus it is premature to talk about possible causes. But a spokesperson for the Department of Transportation does make the observation that weather wasn’t an issue. Communications officer Lindsay Lewis also says there was nothing else out of the ordinary going on.
Neither have there been any recent changes or alterations to the highway in these spots.
This many fatal collisions in mere days might fall outside the norm, but we might put it down to a very unfortunate week, a bizarre coincidence.
A couple of fire chiefs in the area did offer the general observation that motorists need to slow down – leave sufficient space between vehicles and don’t drive aggressively.
That’s certainly good advice for any motorist to follow.
It has also been mentioned that all the crashes occurred on two-lane stretches of the highway.
People will remember the higher proportion of crashes in the Wentworth Valley before the highway was twinned there in the 1990s. That garnered the unfortunate moniker Death Valley.
Twinning on these more easterly stretches is underway, but it’s a step at a time.
It’s not difficult to see that differences in speed among drivers is likely to result in problems. If some travel the speed limit and some drive 20 or 30 kmh over, it’s just not conducive to safe traffic flow.
Add to that the fact that highways are a bit more crowded during the summer with people on vacation.
The points about speed are well taken. Nothing weird is going on, but these terrible incidents are a valuable reminder to drivers to slow down and drive more defensively.
