Is it just me or does it seem like fatal road accidents are happening with greater frequency this year?

This little SUV turned a power pole into splinters in a 70k zone. Half of the pole was embedded in the SUV. I fail to understand what makes people want to go fast on slick roads ???

I fail to understand why the roads are not sanded and salted when needed. Oh wait a minute, I know, a contractor can't make money if they actually do work. Since privatization road maintenance has declined big time.

It seems to always come back to the contractors in these situations. How does an SUV do so much damage doing 70km/h? Do you think a little sand would have helped? Maybe. Do you think driving for the road conditions would have helped? Probably. Not only in this incident, but almost every other one too. You do live in northern BC. My condolences to the drivers family.

Yes, sand would have helped. Yes, driving to the conditions would have helped. But you can't tell me that winter maintenance has not dropped off since the work was privatized. Living and driving 37 years on area roads I have seen the change from well maintained to next to nothing.

Yes acrid54,I have also lived here a number of years and the road maintenance as declined
considerable.I live on the Hart and not one of the bus routes have been plowed up here in about a week and a half,At one time they would been done in less than 24 hours after the last snow fall. I think it as snowed more than half a dozen times up here since then.

I saw another SUV on its side in the ditch on Northwood Road between the golf course and Noranda road this morning. It looks to have just missed the pole sliding by it with inches to spare. Looks like the made an escape out the back hatch.

Sand plow later buried most of the evidence.....

Oh that pulpmill road is nasty. I don't drive my husband to work anymore just to have the vehicle for the day. Everyone is in a hurry to get to and from work. My friend couldn't get up my road yesterday morning to drop off her one year old for me to watch so she parked down below and walked up. No big deal. As long as the highway is done keeping her little guy safe and everyone else safe is what really should matter first. If it's not done, slow down. Enter at your own risk. Only a couple more months to go. Stay safe!

Its getting to the point where the police should to monitor key spots on higways and charge people with un-due care and atention when not driving to the conditions. This problem isnt going away anytime soon even with all the useless computerized traction control in new vehicles..It doesnt matter whos sanding the roads the reality is they cant possibly keep the roads sanded 24/7 everytime it snows a little bit.

I don't trust the RCMP to do their job if we ask them to go after bad drivers. They will make an exercise of tax collection out of it and get all rambo with complete loss of their actual purpose in all the hype and excitement of chasing people down. I don't know what the answer is other than more sand on the roads at the right times and maybe a better complaints driven process from the genreal public....

Contractors who maintain our roads will do the minimum.
The less they do,the more they make, and that's the downside to contracting out highway maintenance.
Also,when was the last time you saw a cop car outside of the city limits?
Whatever happened to the highway patrol once done by the RCMP?
Seems to have disappeared.
People are driving like idiots because they know that!
Drive to Vancouver and count cop cars on the highway outside of the main centers and you won't see hardly any ever!
But this particular accident was obviously self-inflicted by someone driving too fast!
4WD gives far too much confidence,and
people just don't get it,but a stronger police presence on our highways would help to slow them down!
But regardless of the cops,there will always be morons on our roads.
A fact of life unfortunately!

Sand on the highway may have helped but sand on a bare highway gets blown right off after the 1st big rig so in order for there to be sand at every spot on the highway at everymoment is next to impossible. The most sensible thing is to drive responsibly for the conditions and shearing off a telephone pole in a 70 zone does not sound like anyone was driving for the conditions.

That road was sheer ice yesterday and clearly not plowed and sanded. there was at least one other accident and two other vehicles off the road in that area prior to this accident.

I think this was negligence leading directly to a forseeable outcome.

When the temperature hovers around zero plus or minus a couple of degrees some salt mixed in with the sand will help the sand stick to the road surface.

Is salt very expensive?

Don't know about the rest of you, but it seems like whenever I travel along the Hart Highway and do the speed limit, I get passed like I'm standing still on a VERY frequent basis.

Obviously sand, gravel and plowed roads would help, but you can't get around the fact that you still have to drive to the conditions. These conditions can oftentimes change in a matter of minutes or hours. It's physically impossible for road crews to deal with every road in PG on a priority basis and get to them before an accident could occur. We share some responsibility in the way we drive as well.

Drove to Vancouver last saturday and, as NMG says, tons of vehicles past me frequently. I was going about 70 km/hr average on the 97 and only when I arrived at hope that I reached the speed limit. At least 50% of drivers think its summer conditions last saturday.

If the police are staying off the roads because of the conditions and only going to calls whenever abolutely necessary, then that should tell the public something.....

However I feel the private contractors are not doing as good as a job as they could be doing on these roads.

I agree that the road maintenance is not up to par.

However, what if it was ??

THEN, how fast would these guys be travelling, on winter roads, with SUVs and 4x4s, etc. ??

In this particular case (IMO), the vehicle went from the outside N/B lane to the inside lane, went across the median, across the S/B lane (which just happened to be empty), down the road several tens of meters, off the road onto the shoulder sliding sideways, sideways into the power pole (driver side) at still a significant enough speed to shear off that pole and snap it into two, embedding one half of it in the center area of the vehicle, and pulling down all the lines and breaking the pole on the other side of the road, eventually ending up on it's side in the ditch, past where the power pole was struck.

If this wasn't an outright suicide, then it appears the vehicle was travelling way faster than other traffic, heading N/B at Chief Lake Rd. to go out of town on Hwy 97. At the merge point (by left turn lane), it appears this vehicle may have suddenly come up behind a much slower moving vehicle (likely driving to conditions) and swerved suddenly to the inside lane to get past, but swerved too sharply and shot over the median. Then, the vehicle began a yaw slide as the driver likely tried to correct the original oversteer, steering back towards the proper lane of travel. (from my visual survey of the scene only)

Too little, too late, and there is nothing road maintenance could have done for him.

It is only by dumb luck that he did not hit an oncoming vehicle and make it a multiple fatal.

By the way, all the utilities crews did an amazing job of restoring service. This was a huge job and they worked all night.

Amazing job? I took them over 13 hours to restore service. Hardly amazing.

To all these people out there who rag on YRB for cleaning or not cleaning the highways, forget it. I am one of the unfortunate people who is out every night hauling snow for the city. I see the YRB trucks out all night long trying to clear or sand the roads. These guys cannot be everywher at once. Come out and see the way the public drives. They are totaly brain dead, they are going faster than the posed speed and have no concern for sighs or other drivers. As the old saying goes, SLOW DOWN AND LIVE. Drive according to the condition of the roads, we live in the north and cannot have summer conditions all year long.

I was in a car accident Dec. 2004 coming from the Hart. I was in slow lane doing 65 trying to stay out of others way. Roads were icy but had nothing to do with accident. People were passing me in the other lane which put me last coming down the highway by the time I reached the intersection of highway and Grant Rd. There was a lady waiting to come onto highway from Grant to go up towards the hart. I guess she assumed everyone was finished speeding by and pulled out seconds in front of me like I wasn't there. I t-boned her. So speeding hurts even when you're not the one doing it. Of course she could have looked both ways once again before making the dart out. Nasty intersection.