Morning commute challenge for motorists
Police responded to 44 Niagara collisions during snowfall
Slippery road conditions caused a lot of problems for Niagara motorists on Wednesday morning.
Niagara Regional Police dealt with a “higher than normal” amount of action between midnight and 1:30 p.m., responding to 44 collisions during that time, said Const. Phil Gavin.
There were three incidents that involved injuries and 22 were considered minor with no injuries but resulted in drivers being routed to the NRP’s collision reporting centres.
Patrol officers also came across the scenes of 19 other incidents for which reports were not needed to be processed, said Gavin.
The area of the region that saw the most activity was Niagara Falls and Niagara-onthe-Lake, where there were 15 accidents related to weather conditions.
There were nine in St. Catharines, another nine in Welland-Pelham, five in Grimsby and West Lincoln, four in Fort Erie and two in Port Colborne.
It was also a busy few hours for CAA Niagara, which responded to 230 calls between midnight and the early afternoon, approximately 30 an hour, said the roadside assistance service provider’s vice-president of marketing and public relations, Rick Mauro.
“It was a pretty busy morning for us,” he said, pointing out that 35 per cent of those responses were due to drivers being stuck.
Procrastination also played a role, as many of the drivers found themselves spinning in the snow because they had not taken the suggested date of Nov. 20 as the latest anyone should put snow tires on their car as advice they need to follow, he said.
“Some people don’t heed that recommendation.”
Lori Powell, executive director of Niagara Student Transportation Services (NSTS) said some classes started a little more late than scheduled in parts of Niagara due to bus drivers having to take extra caution.
“While we had some service delays and disruption, it was a safe ride to school this morning,” she said.
Cancelling buses is a process that starts at 4:30 a.m. on school days, and a decision is always posted on the websites of NSTS, as
well as the public and Catholic school boards.
She said keeping buses parked was not considered before Wednesday’s routes were started.
“It wasn’t significant enough for cancellation,” said Powell.
Dave Phillips, senior climatologist for Environment Canada, said specifics when it comes to accumulation throughout the region weren’t known, but he did estimate as much as 15 centimetres fell by Wednesday afternoon in parts of Niagara.
He said the storm was not lake-effect in nature and was more of a “quick-moving system,” similar to an Alberta clipper.
Temperatures are expected to reach as high as 8 C on Sunday and, mixed with rain also in the forecast, snow on the ground will be gone soon after, he said.