Two hurt when car hit by racing vehicle: police

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This article was published 18/09/2023 (769 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It took just seconds for the two speeding cars to travel from sight in Cole Kennedy’s rear-view mirror at Portage Avenue and Ronald Street west to Sturgeon Road, where one smashed into another vehicle.

Two people were transported to hospital — one initially reported in critical condition — after their vehicle was struck at about 8:10 p.m., during Sunday cruise night along Portage Avenue, Winnipeg police said.

The weekly, warm-weather event involves vintage and specialty car enthusiasts showing off their vehicles on the city’s main drags.

“It was brutal to see,” said Kennedy, a 23-year-old warehouse manager and car enthusiast who was out with his girlfriend, driving his Chevrolet Camaro.

“Highway speeds. It looked like they slowed up by the intersection, but when they passed me, if I were to guess, I’d say 125, 130 (km/h).”

Winnipeg Police Service traffic division officers happened upon the aftermath almost immediately and called for the Winnipeg Fire Paramedic Service, police said Monday.

A white Honda Civic and black Volkswagen GTI were racing westbound when the white car collided with a blue Honda Civic headed east and turning north onto Sturgeon, police said.

Kennedy was heading toward a parking lot where car enthusiasts gather Sunday nights when he saw the vehicles in his car’s rear-view, near Ronald Street.

“I was talking to my girlfriend, ‘Look at these cars coming by,’ This all happened in five seconds, these guys flew past, the white Civic and another little black car, and two seconds later is when… the white Civic clipped that by-standing car,” he said.

Shocked, the couple slowly drove by the scene. His girlfriend recorded video, showing motorcycle police officers looking into the blue and white Hondas, with Portage Avenue littered with debris.

Two people in the blue Civic were transported to hospital, both later upgraded to stable condition. The lone occupant of the white Civic went to hospital as a precaution, police said.

The drivers of the white Honda and black VW remained at the scene, police said.

Both have been charged with racing and careless driving under the Highway Traffic Act. The vehicles were impounded.

WPS spokesman Const. Jason Michalyshen said police believe the vehicles were travelling at excessive speeds. He called street racing a “dangerous” and “high-risk” activity.

The spokesman said city police don’t take issue with the cruise night event, but with drivers who use it as an excuse to drive recklessly.

“It’s this small percentage that take it into a level, into an extreme, that just really ruins that culture of a community coming together because of a passion they have and ruins it when really poor choices are made,” said Michalyshen.

Any future plans to increase traffic enforcement Sundays would be up to the WPS executive, he said, but noted there is monitoring in the areas where cruise nights take place regularly.

Michalyshen did not have statistics available Monday for the number of recent racing charges, but said he does not think there has been any spike.

“It’s a charge that we, obviously, put forward more times than we would like. It’s certainly not a daily occurrence but we have individuals who kind of glorify street racing through movies and Hollywood and things like that — and what they don’t understand is those are very controlled settings,” said Michalyshen.

“When you have an individual driving a vehicle down a public road, a vehicle that shouldn’t be driven in that manner and a driver who doesn’t have that skill set and none of the safety precautions around them, nothing good’s going to come of it.”

Kennedy, who regularly takes his car out during cruise nights, said such racing is not only dangerous, it gives enthusiasts a bad reputation.

“We couldn’t believe our eyes, it was crazy,” he said of the collision. “It was tough to see that there’s people out there that think that’s OK.

“(If a driver) killed another person, you just ruined your life, ruined that family’s life, for like what, five seconds?”

The WPS traffic division is investigating and has asked anyone with information, including video footage, to call 204-986-7085 or Crime Stoppers at 204-786-8477.

erik.pindera@freepress.mb.ca