The mayor of Barriere is calling for more safety improvements after yet another fatal crash on Highway 5 that involved a transport truck on Thursday – the second in as many weeks.
This week’s crash claimed the life of a pickup truck driver while another near McLure last Thursday, Feb. 2, killed a semi truck driver.
Speaking on the NL Morning News, an exasperated Ward Stamer says Barriere council want to present a resolution at the Southern Interior Local Government Association’s convention, set to take place April 25 to 28 in Vernon.
“That resolution is to have mandatory dash cams for all commercial vehicles in British Columbia,” Stamer said. “That is probably one easy tool that we could use to not only slow some of these trucks down but also make them more accountable on the way they drive.”
He cited Kamloops-based Munden Trucking as an example, praising them for their “proactive” safety programs.
“They’ve even taken one step further and they have two way cams where they can actually see the driver as well,” Stamer said. “I’m not saying that [as] that’s another step down the road but I would certainly like to see how much traction we could get with the government on having mandatory dash cams.”
“It would certainly give us some anecdotal evidence when we do have a crash, when we do have an incident to actually to get to the bottom of some of this stuff.”
Stamer says he has also asked District of Barriere staff to also set up a meeting with provincial Transport Minister Rob Fleming as soon as possible.
The Thompson-Nicola Regional District also has plans to discuss highway safety in and around the Kamloops area with Ministry of Transportation.
Highway safety – particularly in the North Thompson – has been an issue for a number of years.
Last summer, Stamer was calling for the addition of a variable speed corridor on Highway 5 between Barriere and Heffley Creek, believing it will allow the highway maintenance contractor to reduce speed limits especially during times of bad weather, similar to what is done on the Coquihalla.
Those comments came after four people, including a baby, were killed in two separate crashes on Highway 5 last June – crashes which happened about 16 hours apart leading to extended closures on the highway.
In the past, Stamer has also called for the speed limit on Highway 5 north of Kamloops to be dropped from 100 km/hr to 90 km/hr, noting the increased speed led to a loss of some passing lanes on that stretch of highway.
He is also hoping to see full-time highway rescue crews to take the burden of volunteer firefighters, an RCMP traffic reconstructionist based in Kamloops, and better signage and maintenance for some of the existing secondary access routes to ensure that emergency crews and local, non-commercial traffic can still travel up and down the North Thompson Valley in the event of an extended highway shutdown.
– With files from Bill Cowen
