To anyone who has driven the highways in southern Ontario, it will come as little surprise that the OPP West Region led the province in the number of commercial vehicle fatalities in 2017.
There were 17 last year, OPP chief superintendent John Cain for the West Region, said in a video posted to Twitter.
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The OPP West region polices a good portion of the small towns and communities in southwestern Ontario as well as the 400-series highways in larger communities.
While no one is surprised that the corridor has had so many accidents, what might come as a shock is that 80 per cent of the fatal crashes have come in clear, dry conditions, according to Cain.
He said the top 5 causes of commercial vehicle collisions were inattentive driving, loss of control, speed, failure to yield right of way and following too close.
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Cain reflected that the region’s highways should be considered a “mobile community unto itself and everybody has to take their own individual responsibility for safety of how they operate their vehicles and this is not just commercial motor vehicles.”
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He said car owners, along with commercial vehicle operators, should all take care and make sure they are driving with caution and maintaining their vehicles properly.
“They are sharing that highway and that community for a moment in time with a lot of other people,” he said.
He also addressed the reason why police never describe crashes as accidents.
“There is a reason they are called collisions and not accidents. They are collisions,” he explained. “They happen as a result of somebody not doing something, or somebody doing something that they shouldn’t be doing at that moment in time.”
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