An icy road was a contributing factor in the death of a 70-year-old New Hazelton woman, one of the victims in the rash of fatalities along Highway 16 last winter, according to a corner's report on the incident.
Carole Lorraine Swiednicki died at the scene, eight kilometres east of the community, on Jan. 15 after she lost control of her eastbound 2005 Honda Civic sedan while going through a counter-clockwise curve.
Her car struck a concrete barrier and spun into the oncoming lane where it struck a westbound Toyota Tacoma pickup truck, coroner Nola Currie said in her report, issued Thursday.
Swienicki was wearing her seat belt and the steering wheel and dashboard airbags deployed. A toxicology analysis showed no alcohol, prescribed medications or illicit drugs in her system.
The posted speed limit was 100 km/h with 80 km/h curve warning signs posted in the immediate area of the incident. An RCMP collision reconstructionist concluded there was insufficient evidence to determine the car's speed.
Currie classified Swiednicki's death as accidental.
The death was one 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 Sweidnicki was the fourth 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.
