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MERRITT HERALD CRASH PROMPTS MINISTRY PROBE TUESDAY, JUNE 30, 2015 • MERRITT NEWSPAPERS
Of the dozens injured, only four were serious. “It was a very, very fortunate situation where nobody was killed and most of the injuries were minor,” said Cpl. Tim Lyons of Central Interior Traffic Services. Charges are pending against the bus driver, and the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure announced they will be auditing the bus company. Michael Potestio THE MERRITT HERALD
Charges are pending after a three-vehicle crash on the Coquihalla Highway’s Brodie Bridge that left 37 people injured when a tour bus rear-ended a tow truck servicing another vehicle. Additionally, the Ministry of Transportation will conduct a safety audit of the bus company Universal Coach Lines, which is standard procedure in crashes such as this one. The audit will include examining the safety records of the company’s bus drivers, the Ministry of Transportation said in an emailed statement. The events leading up to the accident were put into motion at about 9 a.m. on Saturday June 27, when a red car struck a deer while travelling along Highway 5 about 30 kilometres south of Merritt. The incident left the vehicle incapacitated and its owner called for a tow truck, which arrived at about 10 a.m. While the tow truck driver and the two people from the red vehicle talked in front of the red car, a northbound tour bus rear-ended the tow truck. “[The bus] struck the stationary tow truck, which in turn, struck the vehicle,” Cpl. Tim Lyons from Central Interior Traffic Services said. “The tow truck driver, and one of the occupants from the red vehi-
Top: The scene of the incident on Saturday. @VSAMaintenance/Twitter Below: The wreckage of the tow truck. The driver was seriously injured. @SemiRigged/Twitter
cle were seriously injured,” he said. “There wasn’t enough room on the shoulder to be fully off the road,” Lyons said of the tow truck and car. The tour guide from the bus was ejected, falling into a creek below. Miraculously, the guide was not killed by the fall. He was one of four people who sustained serious,
but not life threatening injuries. One of the people from the bus and some local campers assisted with pulling the tour guide out of the creek. He and the tow truck driver have since been released from the hospital, Lyons said. There were 15 people who were sent to the Nicola Valley Hospital for their injuries. Hospitals in Chilliwack, Hope,
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Kelowna and Kamloops each received about five patients. There were about 30 passengers on the tour bus, many of whom sustained minor injuries. “It was a very, very fortunate situation where nobody was killed and most of the injuries were minor,” Lyons said. Highway 5 was closed for more than eight hours that day. Minister of Transportation Todd Stone said his ministry is working with the RCMP to determine the cause of the crash, which occurred on a dry straight stretch of road. Lyons said the bus was travelling at about the 120 kilometres per hour speed limit and police are investigating why the driver didn’t slow down and move to the left lane, which is required by law. Where the posted speed limit is more than 80 kilometres per hour, drivers must slow to 70 kilometres per hour and move into the lefthand lane if safe to do so when passing any vehicle parked on the side of the road with its flashing lights activated. This legislation carries a fine of $173 and three penalty points. Lyons said drivers need to remember to slow down and move over when they pass emergency vehicles, tow trucks and highway maintenance crews. “It’s not happening as much as we’d certainly like,” he said. An accident such as this is preventable, Lyons said.
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Longer hours at Eco-depot David Dyck THE MERRITT HERALD
As of July 6, the Lower Nicola EcoDepot will be open seven days a week, from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., year round. On a weekly basis, the change will only affect Monday and Tuesday hours. Previously, the depot was only open Monday from 8 a.m. to noon, Tuesday from noon to 4 p.m., then Wednesday to Sunday from 8 o’clock in the morning to 4 p.m. The expanded hours came about from a review done by environmental health services, said Thompson-Nicola Regional District (TNRD) communications coordinator Mike Garrett. “It’s always kind of a contentious topic, the hours of operation on all of our waste facilities,” he said. “There was a review done, there were numbers tabulated of how many people were visiting, what times they were visiting and that kind of stuff. I think that’s kind of what went into that decision.” The TNRD operates a total of 27 solid waste and recycling facilities.
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