Passing lanes on Highway 5 near Darfield, north of Kamloops. (Photo via BC Government)
With Highway Patrol officers being pulled out of Clearwater and moved into Kamloops, local leaders north of Kamloops are frustrated and worried.
Barriere Mayor Ward Stamer says while both his community and Clearwater have RCMP detachments, he explains there aren’t any highway patrol officers at those detachments.
“Not all of our officers live in Barriere, so at any given time, we have a full contingent of officers – very rarely are they all here at the same time so, we really depend on the Highway Patrol to help us out when we have accidents, long weekends, those kinds of things,” said Stamer.
Stamer says the change will mean there aren’t any Highway Patrol officers from Clearwater up to Blue River.
His main worry is when there is a serious crash on Highway 5 North of Kamloops.
“What about if it is going to take any real time, who will hang around and have to clean up the mess? Normally, the RCMP was involved in that process, but they may not have the resources available to do that, so then that falls back on our volunteer firefighters, our first responders – that will make it tough for them.”
Safety concerns on the Yellowhead have been an ongoing issue – particularly last spring when there were several fatal and near-miss collisions- in part due to people and semi-drivers speeding.
Stamer says he doesn’t want things to return to how it was.
“At the same time, we have changing weather conditions… How much more unsafe will it be when people start driving those types of speeds when we have black ice and snow on the ground?”
Stamer hopes Commercial Vehicle Safety Enforcement will continue their enforcement on the Yellowhead north of Kamloops.
He says discussions have been underway regarding a review in the coming weeks with the Ministry of Transportation and the maintenance contractor to discuss the road conditions and safety over the past six months.
Following a call with BC’s Transportation Minister, Clearwater Mayor Merlin Blackwell, and Mayor Ward Stamer back in May, Stamer says there were 2,440 tickets were handed out over the from March to May, with 1,506 being speeding tickets alone.
