It has been a deadly week on B.C.’s highways, with more than a dozen people having been killed in crashes since Monday.
Among the fatalities was a woman in her 20s, who was killed early Thursday morning when she was ejected from a car.
“Two males were trapped in the vehicle and once removed were taken to hospital for assessment,” RCMP Sgt. James Mason told Global News.
“A female was ejected from the vehicle and determined to be deceased.”
Two people were killed on Highway 1 near Boston Bar on Thursday afternoon, closing the highway in both directions.
A motorcyclist was killed on Wednesday evening in a single-vehicle crash on Golden Ears Way in Pitt Meadows. Police said a 70-year-old man died when he lost control and hit the centre median.
Four people were killed in a three-vehicle highway collision on Highway 3 near Keremeos on Wednesday morning.
A family of three, including an infant, died in a crash in Agassiz on Tuesday.
The family, which has not been identified, was travelling along Lougheed Highway at about 3:27 a.m. when their vehicle collided head-on with a tractor-trailer.
According to police, alcohol is suspected in a car crash that injured the driver and killed three passengers on Tuesday night.
B.C. RCMP say the single-vehicle collision happened around 10:30 p.m. July 9, near the East Kootenay community of Wilmer.
“This certainly seems to be trending on the high end towards fatalities throughout the province, really,” Insp. Chad Badry with BC Highway Patrol told Global News.
In each case, either speed, impaired or distracted driving has been a factor, which remain the top three causes of motor vehicle collisions in B.C.
“I can’t underscore enough… People need to slow down, they need to pay attention, make sure they’re not distracted by anything including cellphones, and they need to drive sober,” Badry said.
The investigation into many of these crashes remains ongoing.
“It’s a whole team of first responders that end up attending every one of these crashes or collisions,” Badry said.
“And it affects everybody. For our RCMP investigators, it doesn’t stop at processing the collision scene.”