The RCMP and Diversified Transportation Ltd. are investigating after a video was posted to Facebook showing one of the company’s busses driving the wrong way on Highway 63 between Edmonton and Fort McMurray. But the company’s vice president of oilsands and the woman who shot the video have different accounts of how long the bus was going the wrong way and at what speed.
The video, uploaded by Pamela Helmer, shows the bus driving north on the southbound shoulder of the highway near Mariana Lake on Thursday afternoon. Diversified is an oil and gas employee transportation company that uses the slogan “Driven by Safety.”
“There’s going to be an accident,” Pamela Helmer says.
The Fort McMurray company responded to the video on Facebook, saying it was “actively investigating the circumstances” of the situation.
Diversified vice president of oilsands Mark Hannah said the biggest contributing factors to the incident are a series of detours along the highway moving traffic to various lanes during seasonal paving.
“This particular detour was set up in an extremely poor and dangerous manner,” Hannah told Global News. “The area was cluttered with construction equipment that pretty much nearly blocked Highway 63 northbound. The detour pointed traffic to a crossover that pushed traffic into the southbound lanes. Several vehicles, including ours, ended up there.
“This is without a doubt the most dangerous situation I’ve seen on Highway 63 yet.”
He said only the driver was on the bus at the time, which was heading from Edmonton back to Fort McMurray after dropping off workers. Hannah said the bus was travelling at about 80 km/h and suggested it was only going the wrong way for about 45 seconds.
“The driver recognized that he was in the wrong lane, immediately pulled to the shoulder with his four-ways on, stopped and moved to the next crossover to get back into the correct lanes.”
But Helmer said the bus went the wrong way for far longer than 45 seconds and at a speed higher than 80 km/h.
“He was going north on the southbound lanes, and as we noticed, he passed us,” she told Global News Friday.
“I was shocked to see him on the berm on the side of the road, and he was givin’ ‘er on that side. So Jimmy, my husband, tried to pull up beside him and was honking. I was trying to get his attention, I was waving at him and we did everything we could in our natural power to get a hold of him. But he wasn’t listening, or he couldn’t hear us.”
Helmer then phoned Diversified to tell them the bus was driving the wrong way, and said they hung up quickly without taking any details.
“Then I started filming again, because my husband said, ‘you’ve got to film this in case something happens’ so I’m filming, and we’re trying to get through and there was traffic coming left, right and centre and he was kind of dodging them on the berm.”
Helmer estimated the bus was going the wrong way for about 15 minutes.
“At least 15 minutes, because he passed me and I was going at 110 kilometres. So if he was going faster than that on that side of the road, and it took more than 45 seconds for us to catch up…it’s got to be longer than 45 seconds.
“He was just booting it, you can see it in the video.”
Helmer said she posted the video because she and many of her family members—and many others in Fort McMurray—depend on Diversified busses to get to and from work.
“If we have drivers driving like this on the wrong side of the road, how are we supposed to depend on those drivers to get us back and forth to work safely? That’s why I put it online.”
She also questioned Diversified’s claims that signage was poor.
“It says—big arrows—push over to the left-hand side. And it wasn’t for very long, it was only a patch of construction. It’s not like they were doing major highway construction where they had to divert us onto the other side of the highway. Nobody got that out of the signs. It just asked us to go to the left lane. The signs were fine.”
Hannah said the company makes about 20 trips a day, seven days a week between Fort McMurray and Edmonton. He said his company is working with the RCMP and Alberta Transportation to “remedy” the situation.
“Rest assured that there are mitigating circumstances surrounding this,” he said.
“Diversified’s sole focus is safety. We are recognized as one of the safest ground transportation operators in North America. Our drivers are extremely competent.”
When asked about the discrepancy in timing and speed between Diversified’s account and Helmer’s description, Hannah denied the bus went the wrong way for 15 minutes at 110 km/h.
“It did travel at a speed of approximately 100 km/h for a period of approximately 45 seconds,” he wrote in an email. “When the driver realized he had been pushed to the wrong lane his speed was reduced to 22 km/h and less with the driver applying his hazard lights and flashing his headlights at oncoming traffic. He was in this zone for approximately six minutes until he reached the next crossover.”
The RCMP told Global News the incident is under investigation, and noted it’s not the first time a vehicle has ended up driving down the wrong side of the highway.
“Once he saw the oncoming traffic, why didn’t he stop the bus? He was already on the shoulder,” Helmer said. “Yes he had his four-ways on, so he had to have known that he was driving on the wrong side, but he kept going. I don’t understand why he didn’t stop. That’s why I was video-ing.”
Alberta Transportation wouldn’t comment on the specific incident pending the results of the police investigation, but in a statement a spokesperson told Global News:
“We require all highway construction contractors to develop a traffic accommodation strategy related to the work based on our guidelines. This includes posting signage as needed to ensure safe travel through the area based on work going on at any given time.”
With files from Global’s Sarah Kraus
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