Main Street crash involving motorcycle linked to speeding

Speed appears to be a factor in a serious four-vehicle collision, including a motorcycle, on Main Street Friday.

Police did not immediately release information about the crash, but at around 7 p.m., a large section of Main Street was taped off between Jarvis and Dufferin Avenue. Traffic was redirected and pedestrians were told to stay clear.

Behind the tape, a crumpled white sedan was smashed into the side of a building, and a damaged motorcycle was on its side in the middle of the street. Two SUVs were also damaged.

The Free Press watched video captured from cameras at the nearby Northern Hotel that shows the two vehicles involved in the crash — the motorcycle that had a rider and a passenger, and the white sedan — speeding side-by-side southbound on Main Street. The speed limit in the area is 50 kilometres per hour.

Suddenly, the white car appears to try to avoid an SUV that is turning, by travelling into the motorcyclist’s lane. The sedan appears to clip the SUV and the motorcyclist collides with it.

“The vehicle would have had plenty of time to get across had they not been speeding,” said Keith Horn, owner of the Northern. “Then all of a sudden, there’s a horrific crash involving four different vehicles.”

The Winnipeg Police Service did not immediately respond to a request for information about the crash.

Horn said it’s not often collisions involving high speed take place outside his hotel.

“This is kind of a strange one,” he said.

Blood was present on the median on Main Street where the collision occurred, alongside pieces of the damaged vehicles, but on Friday evening, the condition of those involved in the crash was unknown.

Horn called the high-speed incident unacceptable and said the drivers’ behaviour was dangerous, especially in a portion of Main Street where foot traffic is high.

He said he hopes criminal charges are laid “because those two were racing along Main Street and caused all these problems. Somebody has to be accountable.”

Horn said drivers on the Main Street corridor are encouraged to drive slowly and pay attention, as the area can be “unpredictable” when it comes to pedestrians and other road users.

morgan.modjeski@freepress.mb.ca