This intersection was catastrophically unsafe; how many others are there?

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 08/01/2024 (664 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Until the RCMP finish their investigation, nobody will know for sure exactly who or what was responsible for the tragic death of 17 senior citizens who perished last June near Carberry when their mini-bus collided with a tractor-trailer at the intersection of the Trans-Canada Highway and Highway 5.

However, following the release of a third-party analysis of the state of the intersection, we know one thing for certain: it was not safe. Not by a long shot.

The list of safety concerns at the intersection as it exists right now is lengthy and troubling: inadequate space to allow vehicles to queue for turns; sightline obstructions created by turning vehicles; faded highway lines; worn rumble strips; deteriorating shoulders; insufficient space for acceleration and deceleration lanes; and inconsistent signage.

This is an intersection that was poorly designed from the get-go, and poorly maintained.

Although successive provincial governments have invested billions of dollars into the highway network, some of the most basic safety features (lines, rumble strips, signage) had fallen into disrepair or were inadequate from the moment they were introduced.

How could be that, in a day and age when road safety and infrastructure design are now legitimately viewed as a science, so many problems could exist at this one intersection? And further, how many more intersections like this are littered throughout the province, waiting to claim additional victims?

The problems that exist at the intersection of Highways 1 and 5 are not the hallmarks of a failure by any one person or government. They are, however, evidence of a collective failure to make road safety a top-of-mind concern when designing and maintaining the highway network.

Safety has always been the poor cousin of infrastructure policy. That is not to say that safety is not taken into consideration when planning new projects; every time a roadway or intersection needs to be completely rebuilt, you can bet that safer design and materials are part of the discussion.

But what of roads and intersections that we know are dangerous but not ready for complete reconstruction? We allow those to claim victims until the concrete disintegrates and replacement is the only option left.

The institutional disregard for existing unsafe roads and intersections is really the by-product of the blending of politics of infrastructure policy. And it’s driven as much by public sentiment as it is by partisan politics.

Consider a story from way back in 2013, when the then-NDP government led by Greg Selinger unveiled a plan to use excess revenues from Manitoba Public Insurance to fix “black spot” intersections and roads where the greatest number and most serious accidents take place. The plan was totally reasonable; private insurance companies around the world give money to governments at all levels to improve road safety, knowing that an accident prevented leads to bigger profits for auto insurers.

However, pressured by the Progressive Conservatives under then-opposition leader Brian Pallister and facing a groundswell of public dissent, Selinger ditched the plan.

At the time, NDP cabinet minister Andrew Swan said any improvements in road safety were better done by the provincial government through its regular infrastructure programs. As we can see by the Carberry tragedy, that turned out to be a bad plan.

For a variety of reasons — political expediency, a lack of funding specifically earmarked for addressing dangerous roads and intersections — the province just hasn’t done its job when it comes to road safety. This view is supported by two disparate elements of this tragic story.

First, following the accident, Transportation and Infrastructure did a review of the intersection and determined that it met current provincial road-safety standards.

And then, following the release of the third-party study, the new NDP government pledged to create a “specialized safety unit” to review the entire provincial highway network to determine if updated safety measures need to be introduced.

Taken together, these elements contribute to a common conclusion: the province’s road-safety standards are woefully out of date, or inadequate or both; and there were no dedicated resources within government focused on road safety.

Without pointing the finger at any one person or politician, those two facts are evidence of a colossal failure of public policy.

It should be remembered that driver error is perhaps the greatest contributing factor in road collisions. Driving too fast, not respecting road conditions, not checking blind spots or rights of way typically set the stage for tragedy.

In that context, road-safety design and protocols are really government’s efforts to save us from ourselves. To overcome our natural tendencies to be neglectful, lazy or prone to taking unnecessary risks.

But that doesn’t reduce government’s responsibility to do everything it can to make roads as safe as humanly possible.

There may very well be no way to blame any one person, or any one government, for what happened on the Trans-Canada highway last June.

But all of us who have devalued, dismissed or out-and-out ignored the need to be better when it comes to road safety have some blood on our hands.

dan.lett@winnipegfreepress.com