By Barb Brouwer and Lachlan Labere
Sicamous resident Brian Black is hopping mad following another serious collision involving a pickup truck and a semi-trailer.
For two years Black said he has been meaning to speak up about the condition and maintenance of the Trans-Canada Highway between Sicamous and Salmon Arm. It was Friday morning’s motor-vehicle collision west of Sicamous that finally brought him to the News.
“They are not maintaining the roads,” said the exasperated Sicamous resident, after the crash that resulted in a 71-year-old Salmon Arm man being airlifted to hospital in Kamloops.
Police determined slippery roads were a factor in the early morning collision on Friday, Jan. 6.
RCMP report the crash occurred about 8 a.m. on Highway #1, seven kilometres west of Sicamous. Investigating officers found the Salmon Arm man was travelling west in a Dodge Dakota pickup truck when he lost control of the vehicle – due to slippery road conditions – and slid into the path of an eastbound semi.
Police, paramedics and other emergency service personnel responded, with Eagle Valley Rescue Society members extricating the Salmon Arm man from his pickup truck and assisting BC Ambulance Service paramedics with preparing and moving the patient to the helicopter. Also providing assistance were firefighters with the Salmon Arm Fire Department, some of whom were at a similar scene four days earlier on Highway #1 near Canoe.
On Monday, Jan. 2, Sicamous resident Richard Allen Davidson was killed after the Ford F-250 pickup truck he was driving crossed double solid lines and collided with an eastbound semi. This incident remains under investigation.
After two years of harbouring concerns about the state of the Trans-Canada Highway between Salmon Arm and Sicamous, Black says his wife, Kimberly Bradford, was third in a line of vehicles halted because of the Jan. 6 accident.
“She came around the corner, stopped and got out and walked up to the front vehicle,” said Black, noting his wife returned home to Sicamous and told him the truck had jackknifed and the pickup was just ‘smoked.’
“When she went to the front (of the line) she just about fell, and she has good winter boots.”
Black said Bradford, who works at CIBC in Salmon Arm and commutes daily, was understandably distressed, so he drove her the long way to work along Mara Lake and up Enderby Hill.
In Black’s estimation, maintenance crews are not applying enough sand or salt to keep the slippery road safe.
He says more people need to complain about the state of the road in order to improve maintenance.
But Staff Sgt. Scott West of the Salmon Arm RCMP detachment sees things differently.
He believes that highway maintenance contractor JPW Road and Bridge Inc. is doing the best job that it can.
“Some people are not driving for the mountain roads,” he says, noting it’s up to members of the public to adjust their driving to the B.C. Interior’s changeable weather conditions. “It can change so drastically and so suddenly.”
The Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure says it’s aware of the recent collisions and “our thoughts are with those involved and their families.”
Regarding maintenance, ministry spokesperson Danielle Pope notes that weather over recent weeks has been cold and, as such, highways maintenance practices are to “distribute abrasives with chemical additives (salt) to help it adhere to the road surface.” When it’s very cold, more abrasives are applied as the salt does not react as readily in very low temperatures.
“Warming temperatures as we have now, with light snowfalls, create slippery conditions,” said Pope. “Maintenance contractors are required to apply more abrasives during these periods to ensure roads are safe.”
Pope said ministry staff are out all hours of the day and night during storms to monitor their maintenance contractor’s performance and to ensure roads are cleared and safe.
Black, who retired from his position as health and safety rep at CP Rail four years ago, is also critical of many of the semi-trailer drivers who travel the highway daily.
“The other night my wife arrived home vibrating; she was taking her time and a semi was on her ass. And that’s not the first time,” he says, pointing to the fatal accident on the highway near Canoe earlier in the week. “You just gotta be in the wrong place at the wrong time and you’re gonna get killed. What a way to go.”
