A motorcyclist was airlifted to hospital on Tuesday after he was struck by a car after he apparently ran a stop sign at the intersection of Hutchinson and Telegraph roads near Arbutus Ridge in Cobble Hill.
According to Sgt. Tim Desaulniers of the Shawnigan Lake RCMP, the motorcyclist, a Victoria man, was eastbound on Hutchinson when he was struck by a sedan driven by a woman from Cobble Hill.
“It appears the motorcycle went through the stop sign and was hit broadside by the car,” Desaulniers said.
The motorcyclist sustained significant injuries and was taken to hospital in Victoria by BC Ambulance Service helicopter. His injuries are not believed to be life-threatening. The driver of the car was taken to a local hospital by ground ambulance.
This was the second serious accident this summer at the intersection of Hutchinson and Telegraph, which Desaulniers acknowledged to be problematic.
“It’s a common scenario with the east-bound stop sign not being obeyed,” he said.
Area residents have expressed their concerns about the intersection.
“It should be obvious by now that the intersection is very dangerous,” Gerry Stuurop wrote in a letter to the Citizen. “The bushes on the southeast corner haven’t been cut back, and as a result one has to advance almost to the middle of the intersection to see whether traffic, always speeding, is approaching from the south.”
Phil Le Good also expressed concerns in a letter to the paper.
“This corner is problematic since those coming out of Arbutus Ridge on Hutchinson must pull well ahead of the stop sign to ensure no traffic is coming through on Telegraph, and even then when one thinks the coast is clear a vehicle traveling north at 60 km/hr, the posted speed limit, would find it hard to stop.”
Mike Wilson, the area director for Cobble Hill, happened to be on the road behind one of the first fire trucks to arrive at the scene on Tuesday, but he was already well aware of the intersection’s dangerous reputation, and has been in touch with the provincial Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure about making it safer.
“I’ve been trying to get something done there for a significant amount of time,” he said.
According to ICBC, there have been 10 reported accidents at that intersection in the last four years, but Wilson says there have been many more near misses.
“We are working with MOTI, the RCMP and the Mill Bay Fire Department in the hope we can do something,” he said. “I’m not sure what, but we need to do something.”
