Why it took so long to reopen the DVP after Tuesday’s crash

WATCH ABOVE: Why it took so long to reopen the DVP after Tuesday’s crash. Mark McAllister reports. 

TORONTO – Several lanes of the Don Valley Parkway were closed both ways Tuesday afternoon after a truck rolled over and spilled gravel across the expressway, diverting traffic through arterial roads and clogging up city streets.

The driver wasn’t seriously injured – so why did it take five hours before the roads could open up? Part of the reason is police have to wait until the hospital tells them how seriously the person is injured.

“It is possibly going to become a death investigation so it’s treated no different than a homicide,” Toronto Police Constable Clint Stibbe said in an interview Wednesday.

Responding police officers will immediately treat the investigation like a death investigation if there are any injuries and that can result in a large police presence and extreme caution not to disturb any evidence.

“In this particular case, it wasn’t until sometime later that we were notified the injuries were not life threatening. As a result we were then able to expedite the clean up and get the roadway open, literally as soon as we could.”

But it wasn’t just waiting for the hospital; there was confluence of factors including debris, road safety and how the truck rolled that kept the road closed for hours.

The crash happened at approximately 2 p.m. and the nature of it was unusual for the DVP, where crashes are commonly between two smaller vehicles at a far lower speed.

“It’s not too often that we have a large truck such as the one yesterday, roll over and spill its load across the expressway,” Stibbe said. “It made it treacherous for anybody to come through and imagine anybody coming through at a 100 kilometres an hour and driving into that material. You could lose control of the vehicle, and it could cause a fatality.”

WATCH: (Oct. 28) Footage of the closure on the Don Valley Parkway. 

The transport truck was carrying gravel when it hit the center media Tuesday and flipped, spilling its load across the highway.

Gravel itself can be difficult to clean up. Greg Bednarczyk, a driver with JP Towing, is constantly responding to crash sites to either tow a car or help clean up.

He said large objects like stones or cars can be picked up with his truck, but gravel requires a whole other crew to be called in.

“If it’s gravel, that’s going to take a different subcontract company to come clean that up. So it varies,” he said, mentioning gravel can take up to six hours to clean up.

The first responding officer on scene has to make a number of assumptions including how injured the people might be, if the truck needs to be towed or righted and whether the road needs to be closed.

In this case; the driver looked seriously injured, the truck was on its side and the road was covered in gravel and other debris.

The driver was trapped in the truck and that added another layer of complexity to the investigation; as fire crews worked to rescue the drivers, police closed the road to protect firefighters, paramedics, officers and other drivers.

“We have to essentially watch over everybody,” Stibbe said. “We can’t just make one decision to make the decision better for one group of individuals.”

When the highway closed, drivers began exiting and looking for ways around the crash. While that was happening, city employees at the Transportation Operations Centre were watching on CCTV and figuring out how to best divert cars through the area.

“We were actively monitoring and adjusting the traffic signals during that time,” Myles Currie, the director of transportation services for the city said in an interview Wednesday.

Currie’s team changed signal times on some of the major routes in the area that were being used by the influx of drivers. They made the left turn light at Don Mills Rd. and Eglinton Ave. last longer to let more cars turn onto Don Mills and extended how long the green light lasted for southbound drivers on Don Mills as well so more people could get to the next open exit on the DVP.

– With files from Mark McAllister