‘There’s small ones, big ones’
Residents often see a couple of accidents a week at Gardiner Mines intersection
Gina Levangie has seen more than her share of police emergency lights over the years.
“There’s at least one or two accidents here a week,” said Levangie, of Gardiner Road, whose house is adjacent to the Gardiner Road intersection at Seaside Drive.
“There’s small ones, big ones, they’ve even landed in our ditch before — it’s unreal. I’ve lived here 33 years, it’s been bad for 33 years.
“The accidents are bad too, there’s always someone going to the hospital.”
Levangie said they began seeing accidents as soon as they moved to the area.
“I used to get a knock on the door all of the time (from accident victims needing a telephone), but now everyone has cell phones.”
The danger of the road always frightened her, so they requested a sidewalk when the children were younger and even requested lights at the intersection a few times.
Levangie said the accidents they see mainly seem to concern motorists travelling from New Waterford towards Dominion along Seaside Drive and colliding with vehicles traveling from Dominion that are turning left onto the Gardiner Road.
“To have an 80 km limit passing this intersection, that would be a no-no right there. There should be at least a three-way stop here, but what they really need is (traffic) lights.”
Levangie said she has always been concerned but now has even more reasons to be worried, with grandchildren coming to the family soon.
Peter Arapis purchased the former Boutilier’s Scrapyard on Seaside Drive — right at the Gardiner intersection – in 2016 and moved his family there.
“We saw the problem right away,” he said. “The first week we were here there were six accidents. Then it just continued, one right after the other.
“A friend said to me: ‘I see why Charlie Boutliier had a scrapyard here but I don’t’ know why he didn’t have a winch so he could just pull cars in off that corner.’”
This week alone there were two accidents, including one at about 4:30 p.m. Wednesday. Arapis was going into his house when he felt the acceleration of a vehicle going by.
“I had just pushed my door closed when a heard a big ‘boom!’” he said. “I knew he was trying to catch that left turn, that’s what everyone tries to do.”
The impact was so hard, the car turning at the intersection ended up backwards in his ditch.
“I’ve never seen an impact like that in my life. “
Arapis assisted the man and his daughter out of the car in the ditch, then ran and opened the door of the second vehicle.
“A woman was saying: ‘I’m alright, I’m alright. I’ve got a baby in the back.’
“There was smoke in the car from the airbag, so I told her we had to get the baby out.”
Arapis was about to take them into his house but police arrived and they were helped into the police car.
“They all left in ambulances.” Arapis said it’s always the same thing — a vehicle turning onto Gardiner Road colliding with a vehicle travelling on Seaside Drive.
“There needs to be something done at this intersection,” he said. “I think with all the accidents here there needs to be a red light and a couple signs saying there’s a dangerous turn. You’d think they would have at least spent $1,000 for a yellow caution light so people will slow down. There’s nothing here to tell anybody it’s dangerous. “.
Jeff Aucoin, fire chief of the Reserve Mines Volunteer Fire Department, said their firefighters regularly respond to reports of accidents at the Gardiner Mines intersection.
“It is a dangerous intersection with the high speed and vehicles crossing traffic and there’s always the issue of distracted driving,” he said.
“We’ve talked about it in our department of how most of our motor vehicle accident calls are at that intersection.”
Aucoin said it is definitely a concern of the department, as
it ties up resources when there are accidents.
“These aren’t little fender-benders either, these are high-impact crashes. It’s only a matter of time if they keep happening that someone loses a life and we’d hate to see that.
“There definitely needs to be improvements.”
Steve Metcalfe of Reserve Mines, who owns Steve’s 24Hour Towing with his son William,
said the Gardiner Mines intersection is a bad area.
“It’s a bad intersection, we do see lots of accidents there,” he said. “I think they should get a set of lights there.”
Metcalfe said there are other bad areas, including on the Sydney/Glace Bay highway near Mabou Gardens. But he said the Gardiner intersection keeps them busy.
“Most vehicles have been smashed bad, the last four cars were pretty well wrote off. No one was killed which is the main thing.”
Sgt. Joe Farrell of the Cape
Breton Regional Police Service traffic safety unit, said they’ve responded to four accidents at the Gardiner Road intersection the past two weeks alone.
Farrell said some of the migrating factors of the accidents they’ve investigated include failing to yield when one vehicle is turning onto Gardiner Road, whether vehicles coming from the direction of the New Waterford area or the Dominion area.
“The results of collisions we’ve investigated recently are the result of vehicles turning in front of another vehicle, whether turning from Seaside
Drive onto the Gardiner Road or turning from the Gardiner Road onto Seaside Drive.”
Farrell said as a result of the most recent collisions — because it is a provincial road — they are going to meet with Department of Transportation and Infrastructure Renewal officals to review this intersection
“We will be meeting with those officials to see if any improvements can be made to this intersection to increase safety.”