Spring seems to have finally returned from its extended vacation from these parts as remnants of the long, cold, snowy winter are slowly disappearing.
For good, we hope.
It was an especially harsh winter for police units that are responsible for Highway 2.
“It definitely was one of, if not the busiest winters for us in regards of responding to collisions,” said Cpl. Darren Turnbull of the Airdrie Integrated Traffic Unit (AITU), whose jurisdiction on Highway 2 extends from Calgary to the Didsbury overpass.
From Dec. 1 to March 31, the AITU recorded 176 crashes in that stretch of roadway, including two crashes where someone was killed, 12 crashes causing injury and 162 crashes causing damage.
The total number of collisions in that same time period the previous winter was 83, with two fatal crashes, nine crashes causing injury and 72 property damage collisions.
Turnbull said the cause for the increase in crashes for 2013-14 is obvious.
“I truly do believe it's just been the weather and the road conditions. It's been a long winter,” he said, adding there were a high number of days with low or zero-visibility conditions on the highway or days where visibility was good but the roadway was covered in ice.
The winter driving season on Highway 2 was also notable as there were three collision events each involving more than 20 vehicles, Turnbull added.
“That's rare. A lot of times we'll go an entire winter on the Highway 2 between Edmonton and Calgary with only one or two,” he said. “It's been a long, cold miserable winter for driving.”
Further north, the Innisfail Integrated Traffic Services (IITS), which cover a stretch of Highway 2 from Highway 11A just north of Red Deer to the Didsbury overpass, recorded a total of 191 collisions in their jurisdiction from Dec. 1, 2013, to March 31, 2014.
That number, however, is actually down from the same time period in 2012-13 when the IITS recorded 262 total collisions, as well as that four-month period in 2011-12 when it recorded 233 collisions.
The IITS did not have a breakdown of what crashes involved injury or what crashes involved property damage, but IITS spokesman Cpl. Al Nickolson said the service did not record a fatal crash on Highway 2 during the Dec. 1 to March 31 time period this winter.
In 2013, he added, there was one crash involving a fatality and there were two in 2012.
Nickolson said a big problem he and other IITS members observed on the highway this winter was motorists driving too fast for road conditions.
Even though the speed limit is 110 kilometres per hour, when it's snowing and blowing or the road is icy, drivers should slow down, he said.
“But you still have that person that figures ‘I've got all-wheel drive and snow tires and whatever and I can do 110 (km/h) or better' and this causes nothing but problems for everybody else,” said Nickolson.
Even with snow tires in good condition—which Nickolson recommends for all Alberta drivers during the winter—people need to adjust their driving habits to fit the weather.
“I look at vehicles when they're sitting there on their sides, they might have a good set of snow tires but there's those critical points where it's not going to help you because the highway's polished up ice and it's just a skating rink,” he said.
Turnbull said motorists who prepared their vehicles for winter this season by equipping them with safety kits and emergency supplies benefited greatly if they became stranded on the highway as there were a number of occasions when it took emergency responders a while to reach vehicles that had driven into medians and ditches.
“There were times this winter on those blinding snowstorms where people had to wait hours upon hours because we couldn't see to drive and get them either,” he said.
In the wake of such a busy season for emergency personnel responding to crashes on Highway 2, Turnbull and Nickolson said they are still seeing drivers on the highway in winter conditions who are not respecting laws meant to keep emergency responders safe.
Nickolson said some drivers won't slow to 60 km/h if they see emergency vehicles at the side of the road with their lights on, or they won't move over to the lane furthest from the shoulder where the emergency vehicles are stopped.
He added there were some “close calls” for emergency responders this winter.
“It's a hazardous place to work out there. Highway 2, you've got a lot of people working out there, fire departments, tow trucks, police cars. We want to make sure people respect what we're doing here and what we're trying to do and be as safe as possible.”
Such a disregard for safety, Turnbull said, is especially dangerous to emergency responders in winter conditions.
“Our lives are at risk because of the fact that anything could happen and we could be struck as a pedestrian standing on the side of the highway trying to help somebody else out,” he said.
Turnbull advised all motorists, regardless of the time of year, to pay attention to what's ahead of them on the road and make sure they've given themselves enough time and space to slow down and move over when they see emergency vehicles responding to a crash.
Alberta Transportation was not able to provide yearly collision data for the stretch of Highway 2 from Red Deer to Calgary for 2014 or 2013 for comparison to the statistics reported above.
