The District of Peachland has been calling for safety upgrades for years along a portion of Highway 97 that has become notorious for serious crashes.
A rash of fatal crashes and some other incidents over recent weeks have triggered calls again for upgrades in the area.
“We’re really advocating one — lowering the speed limit. Two, getting developers that impact our intersections to assist with making them safer. And three, to get those stoplights at the bottom of Trepanier Road. Those are our three big items and they’ve been on our table for 12 years and we will continue to advocate,” said Peachland’s Deputy Mayor Keith Thom.
“We don’t need to see fatalities causing us to get safety features on the highway. We’ve sadly had several throughout the 15 years I’ve been here and sadly sometimes it seems to take a fatality to get action.”
Over the past month there have been four major vehicle incidents Highway 97 through Peachland including a fatal single vehicle crash on May 9th. And the next day, no one was injured in a chaotic five vehicle pileup.
Then again, an RV overturned into a parking lot just off the road leaving the driver with minor injuries. And on Monday, a motorcyclist died in a two-vehicle collision on the same stretch of highway.
“I tried to find out what was going on. I couldn’t figure out until I moved down the truck and I saw it was split in half and then I see the gentleman laying on the ground right there,” said Peachland Resident Eduardo Alves who witnessed Monday’s crash. “One tire of the motorcycle was there. These are the pieces that I found, and I have no idea what happened to the motorcycle.”
The cause of each crash is still under investigation; however police say drivers need to be more vigilant out on the roads.
Especially as Okanagan highways become busier with Summer just around the corner.
“We would like to say that we want people to arrive safely at their destinations, whether they’re local residents, visitors or they’re just passing through. Drivers are less likely to be in a collision if they slow down, refrain from passing another vehicle and just stay in their own lanes,” said BC Highway Patrol Cpl. Melissa Jongema.
“When we start to see the weather warm up, we will also see an increase in road users and what that typically means is that we could be at an increased risk of collisions as well.”
Meanwhile council hopes to get stoplights at the bottom of Trepanier Road by the end of the year.
“We’ve been advocating for 12 years for a stoplight at the bottom of Trepanier to where it meets Highway 97 and thus far that has gone on deaf ears,” added Thom. “When we do go to UBCM in September, we will be advocating with the Minister of Transportation to get going with that. We don’t need any more tragedies in town.”