A 47-year-old woman who was driving with her daughter on the Coquihalla Highway died Tuesday morning after a collision with a commercial truck, her daughter suffered non life threatening injuries.
Officials said it’s unclear how the collision happened but they do know that the mother, who is from the Nicola Valley area, was not wearing a seat belt.
“Here we have two people in this vehicle and one has escaped with non-life-threatening injuries and unfortunately the other one is deceased at the scene,” Sgt. Mike Pears with Central Interior Traffic Services (CITS) said.
Pears said it was just before 5 a.m. that emergency responders were alerted to a two vehicle crash between the Helmer Interchange and the Helmer brake check.
According to Pears, a commercial vehicle, carrying household goods rear-ended the Suzuki Swift; both vehicles were travelling southbound on the Coquihalla at the time of the accident.
Pears said officials believe the death was preventable and are putting out a reminder of the importance of wearing a seat belt.
“First of all, it’s the law but more importantly than that, it’s about survival. Seat belts reduce injury and they prevent deaths and collisions,” Pears said.
“We’ve been doing seat belt enforcement for years and I think we really stepped it up in the early 2000’s but unfortunately here we are in 2016, still talking about occupant restraints, we shouldn’t talking about this anymore.”
The male driver of the commercial vehicle had non life threatening injuries.
“His vehicle was laying upside down in the ditch on the side of the highway,” said Pears.
The highway was closed at Exit 315 due to the accident.
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