Council,
I’m sure you are aware that so far this has been an awful winter on the Trans-Canada Highway. Too many deaths, too many closures, too many commercial vehicle wrecks.
Unfortunately, there is no sign that the BC Ministry of Transportation has any plans to do anything to reduce the carnage. Indeed, the only change that they have made this winter, the increase in the speed limit, may be contributing to it.
Could council please consider writing to the Minister of Transportation asking for urgent action to address the problems on the highway?
Perhaps there needs to be an enforcement campaign by CVSE and the RCMP aimed at the trucking industry — especially the companies that employ many inexperienced drivers with no winter mountain experience and pressure them to meet schedules whatever the highway conditions.
Perhaps the standard of winter highway maintenance can to be improved.
The Ministry also needs to make progress on the long term solutions — improving the highway and raising standards of driving in the trucking industry. That won’t happen quickly but it needs to happen as soon as possible.
Nicholas Thomas,
Revelstoke