It’s been three days since a truck smashed up several cars on a residential street in Forest Heights, where residents say they’re frustrated with the Edmonton Police Service response.
Witnesses allege the driver was speeding several times over the limit in a school zone when the crash happened Tuesday night in the southeast neighbourhood.
The crash happened on 83 Street, near 99 Avenue. It’s a quiet, tree-lined residential street flanked by homes and École Michaëlle-Jean, a K-12 French-immersion school.
Area residents said they heard a loud bang around 6 p.m. and went outside to notice two cars had been totalled by a white pickup truck.
“It is a 30 km/h zone and that’s more than 30 km/h kind of damage,” said Eleanor Stewart, whose vehicle was one of the cars hit.
Her red sedan was pushed from the street up onto the sidewalk and left undriveable.
“This is just completely unheard of. This is like, all side streets,” she said, waving her hands to the surrounding neighbourhood. “You know, fender-bender kinda place, that’s all.”
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Residents called 911 and firefighters arrived.
Then, they all waited for police.
“We were told by the fire department that the police had been called, so we waited, we did the usual trading of information, etc.,” Stewart said.
Neighbours said they watched the truck driver stick around for a while, but then left.
“An hour-and-a-half went by and we were still waiting.
“At that point, the young man in the truck, he didn’t say anything but he drove away.”
Edmonton police said they were contacted by firefighters about the collision and officers responded.
Police said when they arrived, two cars were hooked up to tow trucks and the drivers were no longer there. Edmonton police say the drivers were told report to one of the the city’s two collision reporting centres.
But Stewart said she did not speak to police.
“We have no idea what happened — why the driver was going so fast. Possibly if the police had attended at that time, we might have been able to understand what happened,” Stewart said.
“The speed of which this accident happened, I do feel like there should’ve been an interview with the driver.”
While no one was injured, Stewart says she wishes she could have spoken to officers right after the crash while the truck driver was still on scene, in hopes of avoiding a similar incident happening again.
“It’s a school zone and there are kids, so that’s the piece that worries me.”
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