Image Credit: Joshua Knaak

By James Peters / Ashley Legassic

Coquihalla Crash

Coroner confirms death of man in his 40s in Thursday Coquihalla crash

May 17, 2019 | 10:23 AM

KAMLOOPS — UPDATE: Merritt RCMP say the man who died in a crash on the Coquihalla Highway Thursday had stopped to offer assistance after an earlier crash.

According to a news release, RCMP say the victim was a 47-year-old man from Salmon Arm.

Police say a small car had collided with a northbound semi truck between Merritt and Hope around the Coldwater Interchange. No one was injured in the initial crash.

A chain reaction was caused when two more vehicles approached the scene. A driver and passenger who were still standing at roadside were seriously injured and airlifted to hospital. Police say the victim had stopped to render assistance.

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RCMP say several other passengers were treated at the scene.

Merritt Mounties will continue to investigate, in partnership with Southeast District Traffic Services.

EARLIER: The B.C. Coroners Service says it’s an unfortunate but relatively common occurrence: the May long weekend has begun with a fatality on the highways.

Spokesman Andy Watson says the service is in the early stages of investigating the death of a man in his 40s. The victim was involved in a multi-vehicle crash on the Coquihalla Highway between Merritt and Hope Thursday evening (May 17). The crash resulted in a closure in both directions for several hours.

Watson says while some may believe B.C. highways are more dangerous in the winter, statistics show the highest rate of fatalities is seen during summer months.

“There’s no surprise to us that in the summer months, we see a higher frequency of these accidents,” said Watson. “The fatal motor vehicle incidents certainly seem to have an uptake right after May long weekend and wrap right up — in terms of the big trends that we see — some time in mid-September.”

The fatal crash coincides with the release of new data from the service, showing 314 died on B.C.’s highways in 2018. That’s slightly lower than the 10-year average of 326.

Watson says while many of those crashes involve unsafe speeds, there are other prominent contributing factors.

“One of the things that we’ve seen in the data over the last decade is that about one-third of the deaths resulted from motor vehicle incidents where drugs and/or alcohol were involved in the post-mortem testing. And about one-third of the deaths involved decedents where drivers and passengers were not wearing a seatbelt,” said Watson.

Photos from the scene of Thursday’s crash showed roads wet from rain, but officials say it’s too soon to tell whether that was a major factor in the crash.

“Regardless of whether you have bare roads or you have wet roads, it’s important that you’re building the time into your trip plan to make sure that you’ve got an option for arriving at your destination safely,” said Watson, “so if you run into a traffic jam or you run into an accident or you run into conditions that are outside of your control, that you’ve got that extra time built in to get to your destination.”

“As we enter the long weekend, this is an unfortunate start with a fatality. But it’s a reminder to us all that we need to exercise caution on the roadways and take the time we need to get to our destination safely,” Watson added.