TORONTO- A police officer at the scene of a horrific car crash on Monday in Hampstead, Ontario, says this is the worst he has investigated in 28 years.
Eleven people are dead and three injured after a flatbed truck slammed into a van believed to be carrying migrant workers.
According to federal government research, accidents on the road kill one Canadian every three hours, disable one Canadian every seven minutes and cost the country about $27 billion a year.
During a year, the average Canadian has about a five per cent chance of being involved in a crash. However this number jumps to a whopping 95 per cent when it comes to being involved in a collision during one’s lifetime.
Still, compared to 20 years ago, roads are considerably safer now. In 1985, 4,362 people died on Canada’s roads and another 27,057 were seriously injured. In 2004, the last year for which statistics are available, 2,730 people died and 17,533 were seriously injured, according to Transport Canada.
It’s easy to see how sharing the highways between large trucks and passenger buses can claim more lives.
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Canada’s worst road accident to date was a single-vehicle tragedy at Saint-Joseph-de-la-Rive, Québec on October 13, 1997. The brakes failed on a bus carrying 48 seniors, missing a curve and toppling into a stony ravine. This crash killed 43 people and injured five.
Here are some of the worst road accidents in Canadian history:
August 4, 1978 – Eastman Quebec: The brakes of a chartered bus failed and it plunged into Lac d’Argent, killing 41 physically or mentally handicapped persons.
July 31, 1953 – Morrisburg, Ontario: A bus plunges into a canal near, drowning 20.
May 28, 1980 – Swift Current, Saskatchewan: A bus collided with a tanker truck, killing 23 CPR construction workers.
October 8, 1989 – New Brunswick: A logging truck lost control going down a narrow New Brunswick road and tipped over just as a wagon carrying 50 people on a hayride was coming the other way. Twelve people died, including five children, when the logs crashed into the open wagon. Forty-five were injured.
August, 1991 – near Ottawa: A rented van crossed into oncoming traffic and smashed into a tractor trailer killing all 11 family members in the vehicle.
July 16, 1993 – Lac Bouchette, Québec: A pickup truck towing a fuel trailer collided with a minibus. The impact and fire killed 19 people.
October 13, 1997 – Saint-Joseph-de-la-Rive, Québec: Canada’s worst road accident to date was a single-vehicle tragedy at Saint-Joseph-de-la-Rive, Québec. A bus carrying 48 seniors on a Thanksgiving Day weekend lost control on a sharp curve. Forty-three people died and five were injured.
September 3, 1999 – Highway 401, east of Windsor: 87 vehicles were involved in the largest pile up in Canadian history. Eight people were killed and 45 were injured.
March 16, 2000 – Sainte-Jean-Baptiste-de-Nicolet, Quebec: Eight pre-school children were killed when their daycare minivan crashed into another car.
January 12, 2008 – Bathurst, New Brunswick: Freezing rain on the highway caused a high school basketball coach to veer into the a tractor trailer while bring his team home from an out-of-town game. Eight people, including seven players, were killed.
February 6, 2012 – Hampstead, Ontario: 11 people are killed after a flatbed truck collides with a passenger van.
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With files from Ottawa Citizen and the Canadian Press.
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