Casey Richardson
Truckers and essential travellers on Highway 5A had close calls on Thursday after nearly being hit by semis passing on double lines unsafely, and they are warning others to be alert.
The highway that travels from Princeton to Merritt is seeing increased commercial vehicle travel levels as the only commercial route between the Lower Mainland and Interior, and drivers are noticing. Two saw similar incidents when heading towards Aspen Grove on the highway.
Jim Beckett has been a professional truck driver for 25 years and said that there is a push to meet timeframes for the deliveries heading through, but that’s no excuse for the reckless driving he’s seen lately.
On Thursday afternoon, Beckett had another semi pass him out of the blue, as he was approaching a corner.
“He passed numerous trucks, there’s probably about five of us I’d say that he passed. All of it was on double solid lines. A lot of people know that Highway 5A’s very windy so I mean it was it was pretty scary,” he said.
“The driver was zigzagging out of traffic, one minute he gets in front of me and then he jumped in front of the next truck and then the next truck. Fortunately enough, we were able to catch it on dash cam.”
The highway was just opened a few hours beforehand from a previous accident, leaving a lineup of traffic about two kilometres long, according to Beckett.
Commercial Vehicle Safety and Enforcement (CVSE) was made aware of the driver thanks to the other truckers communicating over radio and notifying the enforcement agency to pulled them over.
“There’s a lot of people traveling and we just need to slow it down and be aware so we can arrive alive,” Beckett added. “It’s just tough to see something like that.”
“Being a professional driver myself, it’s just something I would never ever do.”
The B.C. Ministry of Transportation stated that the incident is now in the RCMP’s hands. Ontario-based Peace Transportation, the company that owns the truck making the dangerous passes, did not respond to request for comment.
Later that day, another traveller came nearly head on with a semi truck that has passed over the double lines into his lane while heading down a hill.
“He basically almost smoked my truck,” Stan Jong said. “The front, the centre of his truck was right in front of me, where I sat. It was just crazy.”
Jong was also able to grab dash cam footage of the incident, but didn’t get a clear enough picture of the license plate. He did find out the company the truck belonged to however, and reported it to them.
“Be aware because things like that, what happened to me last night can happen. It’s not even just a semi coming towards you, it could be any vehicle or it could be the road conditions,” he added. “Know your surroundings, if you don’t feel like driving, don’t drive.”
The Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure spoke to their awareness of ongoing issues with safe driving on the highways on Friday, addressing that there have been more resources pulled in to monitor the roads.
“Thats the kind of behaviour that we need to ensure does not happen out there,” Erik Lachmuth, spokesperson with MoTI explained, adding that the focus of getting commercial goods moving across the province efficiently has changed now to ensuring people are acting safely.
“Really the importance is to take your time, drive slowly and drive the conditions now that winter is setting in.”
The drivers who experienced the road still have concerns.
“What happens if I wasn’t paying attention? Right? I would have gotten creamed,” Jong said.
“If it was my family heading the other direction and coming around that corner, I just wouldn’t even want to imagine that.”
