It's been a month North District RCMP Insp. Eric Brewer would sooner forget.
As of Dec. 14, when three people died in a collision on Highway 16 West near the turnoff to Jutland and Jensen Roads near East Beaverly and one person died on Highway 2 south of Dawson Creek, there have been a dozen driving-related deaths in the region so far this month.
They've occurred throughout the district, which covers the upper two-thirds of the province.
"Some in the Peace, we've had some down in the Cariboo and out west, they've been all over," said Brewer, who is in charge of the district's traffic units. "It hasn't been any one place in particular."
The rash of fatalities has means the year-to-date total will likely exceed 60 and be above last year's all-time low of 58. That's still an improvement over a peak of 98 experienced in 2002 but left Brewer disappointed given all the work dedicated to promoting safer driving since then.
"It's really hit us hard," Brewer said. "We were hoping that with December we could keep the numbers down and stay on par with last year as far as our overall numbers for the year would go but with those 12 that's just not going to happen."
Brewer could not speak specifically to the incident that occurred on Tuesday west of the city but maintained almost all collisions and crashes are due to driver error on some level and in many cases skimping on snow tires.
"Too fast for conditions, failing to yield," he said. "We talk about road and weather conditions but basically at the end of the day it comes down to the person behind the wheel managing the conditions that they're faced with and some people drive as if it's summer all year."
Brewer has come across cases where drivers are running on poor all-season tires or really good all-seasons on the front wheels and three-year-old all-seasons on the back.
"Well, guess what? Different sticking capabilities for each of those tires because some have very aggressive new tread and the back ones are almost worn out so you have less traction and your back end breaks out on a curve," he said.
There are the occasional instances when mechanical failure that the driver could not have predicted - like a tire rod breaking - is the cause. Similarly, there have been times when the driver suffers a fatal heart attack or stroke while behind the wheel and then crashes.
Tuesday's fatal is not the first to happen in the vicinity of the turn off. On July 17, 2004, a Prince George couple, Kevin and Kimberly St. Peter, were killed when they were struck from behind by a drunk driver while waiting to make a left turn onto Jensen-Jutland. An elderly driver of a third car was also injured in the incident.
A year-and-a-half later, Ronald Keith Hill of Langley was sentenced to a two-year conditional sentence and one year probation and was prohibited from driving for five years. And in 2007, left and right turning lanes were added at the location.
Not including the most-recent incident, there have been seven crashes that have led to injuries or fatalities over the last 10 years on Highway 16 between Blackwater Road and the Jensen-Jutland Road turnoff according to the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia.
