A woman has won a partial victory in a dispute over who was responsible for her collision with a tow truck on Highway 16 near Vanderhoof, but the outcome still fell well short of what she was seeking.
Barbara Stevens took her case to the Civil Resolution Tribunal after the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia found her entirely at fault for the crash during the night of Oct. 31, 2020 and reduced her payout by the $1,000 deductible.
Stevens contended the tow truck driver, Neal Thiessen, was entirely responsible for the crash and so, should pay her the $1,000.
In a decision issued January 18, CRT member Eric Regehr only partly agreed. He ordered Thiessen to pay Stevens $200 in damages, reflective of the finding that he was 20 per cent at fault. Stevens, in turn, was found to be 80 per cent responsible.
Recounting the circumstances, Regehr said the collision occurred at about 10 p.m. just after a slight S-curve a short distance from the community, about 100 kilometres west of Prince George.
Stevens was heading west when just before she entered the first curve, she saw flashing amber lights in the eastbound lane and assumed they were on a wide load or slow-moving truck heading east, a common sight on the highway.
She also said she saw taillights in her lane, also from a distance.
Because of the curve, the amber lights disappeared from her view and impaired her view of the tow truck which, based on a map she drew, was about 300 metres away.
Just before the second curve, the speed limit increases from 80 to 100 km/h. Stevens began speeding up, but as she rounded the curve she slowed down again because, thanks to her headlights, Stevens saw movement in the ditch to her right, which she came to believe was Thiessen.
Almost immediately, she saw the truck deck across the road, but could not stop in time. Despite hitting the truck deck at a speed of 80 to 85 km/h, Stevens was not seriously hurt, but her vehicle was a total write off.
Thiessen, who had been called to the spot to pull a car out of the ditch, had parked the tow truck at about a 45-degree angle and so that it was blocking both lanes of the highway. The only thing Thiessen did to warn drivers that he was on the scene was turn on the amber flashing lights on the truck’s cab.
Stevens noted the truck was angled so that only drivers in the eastbound lane could see the flashing amber lights and there were no attempts to warn drivers that it was also blocking the westbound lane.
In turn, the respondents, Thiessen and ICBC, argued Stevens should have slowed down when she saw the lights well before the accident site, even though they were not in her lane, and noted she was issued a ticket for failing to slow to 70 km/h when passing an "official vehicle."
Stevens should have been able to tell the difference between a wide load or slow-moving truck, which would have been moving, and the tow truck, which was stopped, they also contended.
Regehr agreed that Thiessen should have either set up a warning, like a blinking hazard sign, in advance of the site to warn westbound drivers or waited for the RCMP to arrive before blocking the westbound lane.
But he also found that Stevens still had an obligation to react reasonably to the flashing amber lights when she saw them in the distance.
