By Liam Verster

Road Safety

Coalition for Safer Alberta Roads uses traffic collision stats to raise awareness on road safety

Oct 11, 2019 | 11:23 AM

The Coalition for Safer Alberta Roads has released some collision stats, and the numbers are alarming.

According to the numbers provided by The Alberta Department of Transportation, from 2012-2016, there have been a stunning amount of fatal collisions, and even more injury-related wrecks on Alberta highways 40, 43, 63 and 881.

There were nearly 3,775 collisions on Highways 40 and 43 between 2012 and 2016 and of those crashes, 46 were fatal.

Executive Director of the Coalition, Debbie Hammond, says a majority of those fatal collisions were head-on.

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“It tells us people are making decisions to do things behind the wheel that they shouldn’t be doing,” she said. ” Passing when you’re not supposed to.”

Hammond says some other examples of bad driving behaviour include passing on a solid yellow line, passing when there isn’t a good line of sight, or passing five or six rigs at a time. She says these types of dangerous behaviours and habits lead to many more fatal crashes than incidents involving road conditions or weather.

The main goal of the Coalition is that everyone drives to zero every day, meaning the number of collisions and fatalities is zero. They have released these numbers to draw attention to the issue and raise awareness.

“There is no number of fatalities on our roadways that are acceptable, and so we always have to be striving for zero through the use of data, policies, and legislation that promote road safety from a holistic perspective.”

The most common cause of collisions was weather-related, animals, and driver error/improper action.

Hammond says the Coalition often tries to work with the province to ensure roadways and infrastructure are well maintained. She adds they also work with local law enforcement to create road safety strategies, find the causes of crashes, and reduce bad behaviours on the road.

“How do we get more enforcement out? Are there other things we could be doing to speak to folks using these two highways (40 and 43), in a way that gets them to think about their own driving behaviour?”

The most dangerous time of year for collisions on the four highways is between December and February. Male drivers and people in pickup trucks are the most likely to be involved in a crash, according to the stats.