Blocked roads not police’s fault
It’s frustrating to be trapped on a highway blocked by police processing a collision scene, but don’t take your wrath out on the police officers — it’s the system that’s at fault, and that system needs correcting. In a situation all too familiar to Island residents, the Trans-Canada Highway just south of Nanaimo was blocked for much of the day following a collision Monday between two cars at the intersection of the highway and Cedar Road.
About 85 per cent of the drivers on the highway were diverted to other routes, police said, although some drivers had to wait 45 minutes to an hour or more before they could continue. Some angry people upset at the delay vented their frustration by throwing insults at RCMP officers who were diverting traffic while forensic investigators did their work.
Keeping traffic away from a crash scene is necessary. Of paramount importance is rendering aid to the injured and transporting them to hospitals, then comes the work of determining what happened, after which the scene must be cleared.
It’s not something done in an instant. Traffic flowing past would hamper the work and, more seriously, would threaten the safety or the lives of police and paramedics. Investigators need time to do a thorough job without having to worry about dodging speeding cars.
Videos abound on the Internet of what can happen when traffic continues to flow past a crash scene on a busy highway: oncoming vehicles crashing into emergency vehicles, gawking drivers veering into approaching traffic or hitting emergency personnel. It is better to delay traffic than risk compounding the death and damage.
But a rule of reasonableness should apply. The judicial system is heaping upon our police forces an increasingly onerous burden in collecting and documenting evidence. Certainly, each investigation should be thorough, but police can’t be expected to cover every possibility when the possibilities are, in fact, infinite.
We cannot eliminate every conceivable risk to individual rights, but should seek an acceptable balance between those rights and the needs of society as a whole. In crashscene investigations and many other aspects of the justice system, legislators and jurists should put their minds together and come up with rules and procedures that strike this balance.
The blocking of a highway cannot be dismissed as a minor irritant, especially when alternative routes are not available to drivers. In the Nanaimo case, traffic was diverted, which resulted in delays, but drivers were eventually able to move on.
But when crashes occur on routes such as the Malahat, traffic is stopped completely. That’s a serious matter for those imprisoned in their cars. They, too, have rights and needs. When the injured have been cared for and the risk to first responders has been eliminated, the focus should be on getting traffic moving again.
If you are trapped on the highway because of a crash investigation, don’t berate the police officers — sympathize with them. It is not their doing that has caused the delay, but a legal system that requires more and more from police.