Collisions

Clare Bekkers spent the evening at a friend's residence in Victoria drinking and using cocaine. The following day she collected her young children and headed home to Nanaimo. When she started her journey that day at 12:30 pm her blood alcohol level was between 93 and 148 milligrams of alcohol per 100 millilitres of blood. There was some indication that she may have consumed beer in her vehicle on the way home.

According to the BC Injury Research and Prevention Unit "motor vehicle collisions are the leading cause of unintentional injury death across all ages in BC. The majority of motor vehicle collisions involve injury to occupants, yet many motor vehicle-related injuries can occur among pedestrians, cyclists, and motorcyclists.

I was just reading the account of the head on that happened on Shannon Lake Road. I certainly have sympathy for the people involved, but I noticed that one person received a charge of "Speeding Relative to Conditions."

This is a case involving a pedestrian, Brian Cairney, and a driver, Kimberly Miller, who met in a crosswalk at the intersection of Vernon and Hall Streets in Nelson. It was a dark, overcast evening with light rain. Street lighting was present along with other pedestrians.

In this case, Kathleen Haughian was proceeding eastbound on Sunset Street east of Smith Avenue in Burnaby, B.C.  Sunset Street in this location consists of two lanes in each direction with angle parking on both sides. The angle parking is toward traffic on the north side and away from traffic on the south side.

Join the folks at Fifth Gear as they crash a Ford Focus into a barrier at 120 mph or 193 km/h. After you take a look at the result, remember that a two vehicle head on crash at freeway speeds here in BC is somewhat the same. Two vehicles coming together at 100 KM/H each is the energy equivalent of this car striking the barrier at 200 km/h. Regardless of the circumstances, you don't want this to happen to you.

In this case Mr. Deol was riding his bicycle on a sidewalk in a direction opposing traffic on the highway adjacent to him. Mr. Veach was attempting a right turn onto the highway from a parking lot. Both stopped, Mr. Deol on the sidewalk at the parking lot access and Mr. Veach prior to crossing the sidewalk. Both proceeded at the same time and collided.

Mrs. Wong-Lai and her husband were crossing Prior Street between Gore and Dunlevy in Vancouver to return to their car. They were struck by a car driven by Mr. Ong. The older couple were not able to cross the street quickly, had chosen to cross where there was not a crosswalk on a wide, busy street at night in a heavy rain.

Virtually every crash scene that I attended during my policing career featured at least one good samaritan. These were people who stopped to help another in a time of need, often at some risk to themselves. This kind of selflessness is encouraged with protection granted by law in British Columbia.

This Dutch Hyundai Velostar advertising video (subtitled in English) could really make you think about which side of the vehicle you exit on. In this case, the Hyundai concept is that you cannot exit on the driver's side because there is no rear passenger door there, forcing passengers to exit on the safe side.