File Photo (Image Credit: CFJC Today)

By James Peters

Two and Out

PETERS: Fatal crashes ramp up pressure to twin Kamloops-area highways

Jul 8, 2022 | 10:38 AM

THE AMOUNT OF CARNAGE we have seen on Kamloops-area roads in the past few weeks has been both unfathomable and unacceptable.

The most gut-wrenching incident happened about three weeks ago near Vinsulla, where a man driving a moving van witnessed his family almost completely wiped out in an instant after a head-on crash with a semi.

A collision on the Coquihalla the same day took another life.

Separate motorcycle incidents two weekends ago killed two more people.

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Then this Tuesday, a head-on crash near Little River Road west of Sorrento killed the occupants of both vehicles. Three more lives lost.

The causes of all these incidents have yet to be revealed and, in some cases, may never be known.

In the two deadliest crashes we just listed, we know there is one change that would likely have prevented death, regardless of the cause of the collision, and that’s a twinned highway.

The collisions at Vinsulla and Little River both happened when one vehicle unexpectedly veered into the path of another.

If the highways had been four lanes in those locations, those collisions are much less likely to have happened.

Separating traffic with a median can have a dramatic impact on highway fatalities. According to the Rocky Mountain Outlook, a twinning project on the Trans Canada Highway through the Banff area caused a six-fold reduction in fatalities because it all but eliminated head-on collisions.

A project to four-lane the Trans Canada from Kamloops through to the Alberta border has been rolling out for literal decades.

In 2008, then-MP Betty Hinton flashed that Cheshire Cat smile as she delivered more than $40 million federal dollars for the first phase between Monte Creek and Pritchard. That was 14 years ago.

This summer, crews are still chugging away at the stretch just west of Chase, leaving a section past the Neskonlith reserve as the last to be twinned.

East of Chase, progress on four-laning is just as slow.

Governments of all levels and all political stripes must share responsibility.

Unfortunately, it takes people dying for us to ramp up pressure on those governments.

With all of the sorrow and despair on our roads over the past few weeks, the pressure should be higher than ever.

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Editor’s Note: This opinion piece reflects the views of its author, and does not necessarily represent the views of CFJC Today or Pattison Media.