Credit: CFJC Today

By Noah Rishaug

Yellowhead Improvements

Provincial, municipal governments talk Yellowhead improvement after week of tragic collisions

Feb 16, 2023 | 4:37 PM

BARRIERE, B.C. — The two fatal collisions along the Yellowhead north of Kamloops near Barriere last week have started a conversation between local legislators and the province. Municipalities and the provincial minister agree that something must be done. In the wake of the semi truck accidents along Highway 5, the province is exploring measures to make travelling along the Yellowhead near Barriere safer.

Barriere Mayor Ward Stamer and Transportation Minister Rob Fleming spoke Thursday (Feb. 16) about potential solutions. Mayor Stamer believes it will take a number of initiatives to solve the problem.

“All these things that we’re talking about — whether we’re talking about mandatory dashcams, we’re talking about electronic logs, speed limiters, variable speed corridors — those are all tools in the toolbox. It’s not just one thing,” said Stamer.

“We’re talking about revisiting some technology that may help the situation. There has been an idea — for whatever reason the previous governments didn’t act on it — but it was about variable speed limits. We’re certainly willing to have that conversation, and I intend to meet with the mayors of Clearwater and Barriere for that, specifically,” Minister Fleming told CFJC Today.

1000 WAYS TO HEAL

1000 WAYS TO HEAL: Honouring Our Ancestors

46m ago

LOOPED IN

LOOPED IN WITH NIKKI OMEN: December 18, 2025

46m ago

Question of the Week

Have you ever used a designated driver service?

1h ago

In the meantime, temporary solutions were discussed on the call. The mayor suggests temporarily reducing the speed to 90 km/h on stretches of the highway.

Police are already currently over-enforcing the area to keep drivers within the speed limit. Over the weekend, 72 tickets were issued. Mayor Stamer, however, only sees this as a temporary fix.

“By taking those resources away from other roads, that’s going to probably increase the risk on those roads. The next thing you know, they’re travelling too fast on Highway 1 or 5A or Highway 3 or the Coquihalla — wherever they’ve taken those additional resources to do a blitz on our highway,” said Stamer.

Minister Fleming also believes that it is important to communicate with the trucking companies to make sure their drivers are aware of road conditions, and the increased risk during the winter months in order to curb irresponsible driving

“There’s been a number of violations that have been issued by CVSE, the commercial vehicle safety enforcement officers in our ministry, as well as the RCMP. More than 100 of them were for speeding,” said Fleming.

The minister states he will be looking into these suggestions and is actively planning a package of improvements along the Yellowhead.