Please be carefule on the roads for the holidays

johnvosh

Senior Member
I just want to take this quick minute and tell everyone to please be careful on the roads this holiday season.

We had some freezing rain this morning and almost witnessed a semi truck slam into the back of an ambulance and hit the ditch.... Here's what happened...

Driving to Drayton Valley this morning. Coming up to Century road as I was traveling west on Yellowhead, saw an ambulance on the overpass. I watched to see where it was going, and it came down to head west. I was in the slow lane and the ambulance was already on his way to the accident, just up the road. I move into the fast lane as there was a car exiting the off ramp. Anyways I stay in the left lane as I could see the accident scene was just ahead. The car in front of me moves in front of me as we start to slow down.

I put on my hazards as I could see the ambulance had stop in the right lane. From what I could see, there was 1 or 2 vehicles in the ditch on the right side on their side or roof and around 3 vehicles on that side of the road and a couple on my side. As we are getting closer to the accident and slowing down, I am watching my passenger side mirror.... I could this semi truck coming up quite fast. As we get closer, he isn't slowing down or moving over as the lane he was in was blocked. As his cab got to my front window I hit the horn a couple times to clue the idiot in that he needs to stop and get over. Well he ends up hitting his brakes, basically locking them up. As his truck is coming to a stop I could hear his tires locking up and then I watched as his trailers (it was a Gibbsons Super-B) starting jack-knifing towards the ditch.

I was shaking for about 5 minutes after this as I continued down the road. If the road would have been a bit more slick then what it was, He would have slammed into the back of the ambulance, hit the ditch and killed at least 1-2 people. I still can't understand what was going thru his head when he wasn't slowing down or moving over..... It's funny too because about 20 KM down the road the semi ended up passing me!

A while later, I heard on the radio that they ended up shutting the highway down for an hour or two to get the accident cleaned up.
 

Scott Murray

Senior Member
Thank you for this timely reminder, I most likely will be the one driving an ambulance over the christmas period so I would rather it to be a leisurely drive and not responding to an accident. Please be extra vigilant as it only takes one distracted driver (on mobile texting etc) to cause a horrific accident.
 

Nero

Senior Member
We had freezing rain over the weekend. It's bad enough when we have a light snowfall (you'd think people living in Canada would be better at driving in the snow) so you can imagine how bad it was here.
 

snaphappy

Senior Member
There was a moose vs car fatality this morning in our area. Wildlife is out and what can possibly be avoided in dry warm months the ice/snow makes much more dangerous. Hitting the long legs of a moose at Hwy speeds in a car is scary stuff. We've all got to slow down and avoid all distractions. Sadly we sometimes need to see these consequences to remind us to be more careful.

Safe travels everyone and hoping everyone has a wonderful safe holiday season
 
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