A rchive Date
[ 10-06-2000 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ Canada ]
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[Designed for disaster
Poorly-designed stretches of highway, like the one near Windsor where seven people died last week, are a consequence of the Ontario government's failure to upgrade problem roads
By STEVE MADELY - Ottawa Sun
September 8, 1999
One of death's bitter lessons lies in a quarter-kilometre repaved stretch of Ontario's Highway 401, near Windsor. This is where seven people died and more than 40 were injured in Friday's fogbound crash of 80 vehicles, and a fire so hot that it melted away the pavement.
Police had to update the number of vehicles involved when on further investigation they realized a hulk of metal they mistook for one car, was in fact the fused remains of two separate cars.
While fog and speed were major factors, those who survived are now telling horrific stories of how the series of crashes unfolded and how, because of the highway's unforgiving design, even those motorists who saw the accident ahead, could not escape becoming part of it.
With only tiny, steeply banked gravel shoulders, and a narrow grass median strip, even those who tried to pull off the road in the main crash zone - what police have dubbed the hot zone - were caught in the crash. Others were mowed down as they ran up the minimal road shoulder, hoping to help those who were trapped in the wreckage.
The unforgiving 1960s-era highway, one of the busiest in Canada, leaves no room for human error.
Their deaths, and hundreds of others caused in part by inadequate roads, are on the heads of federal and provincial governments, which have collected billions in highway taxes, but redirected the cash rather than spending it as intended - on more modern, safer roads.
The same deception by which they deliberately divert EI premiums, pension contributions, and environment duties, is used to siphon off gas tax revenues, earmarked specifically for highways and safety, but piped instead into the bottomless pit of general revenues.
According to the Canadian Automobile Association, less than a third of highway taxes collected in Ontario actually go towards highways. The Ontario government collects $3.5 billion in gasoline taxes and auto license fees annually, but invests less than half, $1.5 billion in highways.
The federal government receives $2 billion in gas tax from Ontario alone, and currently spends none of it on Ontario's highway infrastructure.
Just as our local killer strips, on Hwy. 17 to Renfrew and Hwy. 7 to Carleton Place, are infamous for antiquated, unsafe design well below accepted traffic volume guidelines, the 401 stretch from London to Windsor, inundated with heavy truck traffic from Detroit and the U.S. Midwest, has been denounced for years.
Proponents of a third lane, aware they were being turned down because of costs, have repeatedly requested at least a compromise upgrade, with wider semi-paved road shoulders and median barriers at least approaching modern standards.
Fog zone
Even modest demands for reflectorized road markings and a warning system in the fog zone have gone unheeded, as they have in our own Eastern Ontario equivalent - fog prone stretches of the 417 near Plantagenet.
The level of government responsibility for the carnage may be settled by the courts in the Windsor crash and could set a precedent which finally forces governments to spend the highway taxes they collect. With such a large number of victims and insurance interests, class action and individual lawsuits similar to the multi-billion dollar lawsuits which follow airline tragedies are surely inevitable.
The government's liability, morally and financially, is enormous, given its level of indifference, if not sheer negligence.
Madely can be reached at (613) 739-5133 ext. 412 or by e-mail at madely@cfra.com.
 World Fact Book (CIA)]
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