Police in the Robson Valley are getting belted by MVIs.
The Valemount RCMP detachment has responded to 40 non-injury motor vehicle incidents since the start of 2012, eight more with injuries, and so far none involving death. Const. Stephen Smith said there have been eight crashes in their coverage area since Friday, two of them rollovers with multiple lives on the line. Everyone survived with hardly a bruise, he said, due to correct use of seatbelts.
In one of the incidents, four youths aged between 19 and 20, lost control on icy Highway 16 a few minutes past midnight. They were on a remote stretch of the road between Mount Robson and Jasper.
"All were wearing their seatbelts and suffered no injuries," Smith said. "Any time there is a rollover, the chances are great that someone without a seatbelt on will be hurt, but when you've got other people in the vehicle too, that unbelted person becomes a safety hazard for everyone else. If you don't have your belt on, or you slip loose because you had the strap under your arm instead of over your shoulder like you're supposed to, you become a projectile than can kill the other passengers. You can also be thrown out of the vehicle and get rolled over by your vehicle or hit a solid object with a lot of force. These four were all belted in, all correctly, and they came away physically unharmed."
Also over the weekend was a female driver travelling from the Okanagan towards Valemount on Highway 5. She was alone in her vehicle - sort of.
"She hit ice, slid across the other lane of traffic and went down into the ditch on the other side of the highway," said Smith. "The bank was on a probably 50 per cent grade, she was travelling at a 45 degree angle, it was about 40 feet down, and when she reached the bottom and caught her outside edges, the vehicle flipped. Her airbags did not go off, but she was properly wearing her seatbelt so she was held in position. She was five months pregnant. She got herself out of the vehicle, packed her belongings into a backpack and it took her about 15 minutes to hike back up to the road, and eventually someone came along to take her into town. She got checked out at the medical centre and all she had was a bit of whiplash. The baby was fine, too."
Because there are a number of major highways passing through the area, and most drivers in that area are on long distance journeys, speed is a major factor in the traffic dynamics of the Robson Valley. It is also mountainous and curvaceous terrain. High snowbanks can pinball and catapult vehicles, steep banks can toss them over, and if a collision happens it is usually at full highway speed.
Smith said the majority of his detachment's callouts in the winter are in response to MVIs, many of them rollovers. As long as a collision with a tractor-trailer isn't the case, the injuries from these incidents are minimal. Were seatbelts not properly used, he said, the casualties would be massive.
