WATCH ABOVE: People are renewing calls for barriers along Highway 99, as family and friends gather to mourn a mother and son killed in a crash on the road. Jeremy Hunka has the story.
A seven-year-old girl has made an emotional appeal for highway safety upgrades after a car accident near Lillooet that killed her aunt and cousin.
Riley Donohue’s hand-written note to B.C.’s Minister of Transportation Todd Stone attracted a lot of attention after her aunt posted it to Facebook. The letter asks Stone to “please put berryres near Lillywat because there has been a car acadint with my famaley.”
Her father is proud of her courage.
“Riley in her own words put that into perspective for all of us,” said her father Ryan.
On Jan. 2, a car travelling south on Highway 99 sideswiped another vehicle and veered off a cliff to the shores of the Fraser River. Seven-year-old Sage McCaul and Trish Donohue, 46, died at the scene. Three other passengers survived.
Donohue isn’t alone in wanting the Ministry of Transportation to consider installing a concrete roadside barrier (CRB) along Hwy. 99. Between 2001 and 2013, 58 people died in fatal crashes between Squamish and Lillooet on the highway. Lillooet resident Deanne Zeidler started an online petition asking the Stone to “reassess the need for further CRB along Hwy 99/Hwy 12/Road 40 to prevent unnecessary deaths.”
More than 1,500 people have signed the petition. Transportation Minister Todd Stone says he’s read the letter and says changes could be on the way.
“It actually brought a tear to my eye,” said Stone. “It was a very articulate letter for a child that age.”
“We are looking at that corridor as a top priority right now…crews have been out there and we’re going to continue to assess that corridor, and we’ll see if adding some median there makes sense.”
That change can’t come soon enough for Ryan Donohue.
“We need to readdress this and make sure it doesn’t happen again, so someone else doesn’t have to lose a member of their family.”
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