BC’s Transportation Minister is suggesting more changes are being put into place along the Yellowhead corridor north of Kamloops – including more enforcement – to try to reduce accidents involving commercial vehicles.

In the wake of two deadly crashes earlier this month, Rob Fleming says they have added more Commercial Vehicle Safety and Enforcement officers on that stretch.

“We’ve shifted the resources to the 5N for now because of these accidents, quite frankly, and because we’re observing some higher traffic volume,” Fleming told the NL Morning News on Wednesday.  “I think the working theory is that there’s been a bit of a shift of the percentage of traffic from Highway 1.”

Fleming suggests the shifting of enforcement resources is likely to pay off.

“One of the things we did last weekend that was interesting was on the enforcement side was we redeployed some of our CVSE officers and issued 72 tickets last weekend – 39 of them were for speeding,” noted Fleming.

“We’re going to put a spotlight on this for enforcement for a while to come and see if that changes behavior for the better on the roads.  I suspect it will.”

Fleming says they’re also looking at more physical changes as well.

“The variable speed limits – we’re looking at its feasibility right now. We’re looking at overhead reader boards too that you see on other highway corridors that announce what kind of conditions are expected ahead.”

It’s not clear what sort of timelines are in-play for those infrastructure upgrades.

Fleming – who already met with Barriere mayor Ward Stamer earlier this week – says they plan to have another meeting, including Clearwater Mayor Merlin Blackwell, before the end of the month to shoot through more ideas.

Stamer tells NL News his recent meeting with Rob Fleming was a productive one, noting it appears the minister is committed to preventing more deaths on that stretch of highway.

“If that means that we need increased enforcement for the next period of time, then I’m pretty sure that’s what we are going to get,” he said.

“I am hoping that that is what we do have because there are lots of times when there isn’t that level of enforcement and you can see some of these things that have started to creep back. I applaud the minister for reacting as quickly as they did and for starting to out the hammer down on some of this stuff.”

The Thompson-Nicola Regional District also has plans to discuss highway safety in and around the Kamloops area with Ministry of Transportation.

Highway safety has been an issue for a number of years – particularly in the North Thompson.

– With files from Jeff Andreas and Victor Kaisar