A second coroner's report is pointing to road conditions as a possible factor in one of the several deaths along Highway 16 last winter.
According to a report issued Friday, there was heavy wet snow and the temperature was -1 C on Jan. 7 when the 2006 Honda Civic Ba Tuon Hoang, 27, was in collided with a 1985 Kenworth dump truck at about 2:45 p.m.
The dump truck had crossed the centre line while going through a curve west of Terrace, coroner Wendy Flanagan said in the report.
A 1996 Dodge Ram pickup truck that was two-to-three car lengths behind the Civic, in which Hoang was a passenger, hit the car's right rear corner panel. The pickup left the scene prior to arrival of the police but was later located.
All three vehicles met the standards set out in the Motor Vehicle Act and Regulations, Hoang was wearing a seatbelt and the airbags had deployed.
As a result, Flanagan concluded the "road conditions at the time of the accident may have been a contributory factor." She classified Hoang's death as accidental and made no recommendations.
In a report issued Thursday, a fellow coroner found an icy road played a role in the death of a New Hazelton woman, Carole Lorraine Swiednicki, 70, who, on the morning of Jan. 15 lost control of her 2005 Honda Civic eight kilometres east of the community and struck a concrete barrier.
The deaths were two of several that occurred between early November 2013 and the end of January 2014 along Highway 16, which stretches more than a thousand kilometres from Prince Rupert to the B.C.-Alberta border.
Many of them involved collisions between passenger vehicles and larger commercial trucks, often logging trucks or semis pulling trailers. In late January, Transportation and Infrastructure Minister Todd Stone raised the winter maintenance classification for Highway 16 to class A partly in answer to the number of collisions and fatalities.
It meant plows and sand trucks took to the roads more quickly and after smaller snowfalls.
The classification for Highway 97 North between Prince George and Chetwynd was also raised to the higher standard.
The report on Hoang was the fifth issued by the B.C. Coroners service since that time. "Bald, worn out tires" were a factor in a head-on collision near Houston on Dec. 29, 2013, heavy alcohol intoxication was a factor in a head-on collision near Burns Lake on Nov. 30, 2013, and illicit drugs played a role when a pickup truck slammed into a rock face in Prince Rupert on Nov. 24, 2013, according to the reports.
So far this winter, there has been one death on Highway 16 - an 18-year-old died Tuesday in a rollover 20 kilometres east of Burns Lake. The victim's name has not yet been released.
