Stony Plain man dies in crash after driving in wrong lane

SASKATOON – An RCMP cruiser dispatched to stop a car going the wrong way on a divided highway near Warman, Sask., was unable to catch it before it crashed in the north end of Saskatoon, killing the lone occupant.

The name of the 59-year-old man from Stony Plain, Alta., has not been released as authorities seek to notify next of kin.

The single-vehicle mishap occurred around 8:40 a.m. local time Friday.

A collision analyst from the Saskatoon Police Service was on the scene for several hours.

Warman RCMP received three calls, the first of which reported the car near the town of Warman’s north access road.

A second call came from the town’s south access road and the third was “about 10 minutes north of Saskatoon,” said Sgt. Warren Gherasim.

“There was a police vehicle dispatched, but by the time he caught up he actually encountered the collision shortly after it happened. It was some distance behind the subject,” Gherasim said.

The two-door car had struck a guardrail on the east side of the northbound lane of the twinned highway.

“Somebody had seen the vehicle at the Warman north access so it probably was on the highway even north of Warman yet, in the wrong lane,” Gherasim said.

The distance from the Warman north access to the border of Saskatoon is about 15 kilometres.

“In that 15-kilometre stretch there are numerous locations, just virtually at every crossing or intersection with the highway, there are wrong way signs posted on both sides of the highway to give people an indication,” Gherasim said.