Resident says there’s A crash every Couple of weeks
Those living close to crash site say more must be done to reduce collisions nearby
Residents alongside the site of Monday’s Highway 401 bus crash differ as to what they believe causes the collisions outside their doors and what can prevent them. But many agree on this: there are simply far too many of them.
“It’s very frequent,” says Angie Chapman, whose house on Concession 2 Road, near Blue Church Road outside Prescott, is just a stone’s throw from Monday ’s crash site.
“There was one last Thursday night with a transport truck and a motorcycle. Two weeks ago we had two other accidents as well, both involving transports.”
Chapman estimates there’s a collision every couple of weeks in the 11-kilometre stretch between Prescott and Maitland.
“And most of it is because of distracted drivers. I travel the highway every day for work, and following behind transports or passenger vehicles, people are all over the road, weaving back and forth. You see them on their cellphones. You see truckers looking down at their lap.”
Chapman’s next-door neighbour, Stephan Gravel, says “There’s been nothing but crashes here. This is the third one that I could literally see, just in the last month.”
The stretch of highway outside their homes is straight, says Gravel, so he’s at a loss to explain all the mishaps. Ongoing construction just east of Monday’s crash site, which has reduced westbound traffic to a single lane, may be a factor, he concedes, while transport trucks that have their maximum speeds governed may also play a part.
“When a truck goes to pass another, it may take a kilometre to get by, and everybody behind them is in a hurry after that, and that’s where the problems arise. As soon as that truck cuts back in, everybody’s hammering down.”
Additionally, he says, the site of Monday ’s crash is only a handful of kilometres west of where Highway 416 meets the 401.
“So you have the Montreal traffic and the Ottawa traffic joining in there, so this stretch would be a little heavier for a little while, until they all separate again.
“But widening the highway just makes no sense,” he says. “Everybody’s just going to go quicker. Sometimes I sit out here and have a coffee and watch, and there’s just people flying by here. They’ve got to be doing a buck-forty, and that’s not exaggerating.”
Most of the mishaps have involved transport trucks, Gravel says.
Another neighbour, Zach, who asked that his surname not be used because of his position as a driver in the transport industry, said there are possible causes beyond simply the governed speeds of transports frustrating other drivers.
“It’s a very long, very boring stretch, and highway hypnosis is a distinct possibility, where it’s harder to remember the last few miles and the only way out of it is for something to happen, and your reaction time is greatly stunted.”
And while he says that Ontario leads the way in trucking regulations in Canada, including the Mandatory Entry-Level Training (MELT) program introduced last year, further steps could be implemented to make the industry safer, including reducing pressure on drivers from their employers to complete routes as quickly as possible.
“You’re starting to see that with larger, more forward-thinking companies, but it has to happen faster.”
Unlike his neighbours, though, Zach says widening the highway with a cars-only HOV lane, similar to those on Highway 417 in Ottawa, might help.
“That way, people who want to speed and get away from everyone can stay away from the transports.”