These are safety issues that concern all who drive to the Mountain.
1.3.24.Public.Service.Winter.Driving.Advisory.a.jpg
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Prompted From Memory As A Consequence Of The Above...
Once upon a time... a Grim, not for children, not-so-fairytale...
It was the first winter just after the 2 sections of the fully widened and
bi-passed Highway 50 were joined, so roughly January of 2013 or so
and we were making a late night transit to Tremblant from Ottawa
via #323 at Montebello on this brand new section of the highway.
There was very little traffic but a recent snow storm had left fresh plowing
banks on the shoulder of the highway and a fairly thick strip ridge of
snow was variably packed down the centre of the highway in the 2 lane
zones. There were still some small zones of active snowfall and in many
areas, it looked like “cart tracks” over fresh snow cover. The sky was
overcast and there was no illumination, only black as ink surroundings
as your headlights cut a beam onto the thin film of slick snow residue still
covering the pavement.
It was already a dangerous combination.
Just past the exit for Thurso, a pair of very bright HID’s came up
behind us as we were cruising at around 95k and tailgate hogged
our bumper way too closely until a straight stretch opened up a
passing zone. Immediately, this obnoxiously loud Import Pocket
Rocket pulled out and took off down the road at a speed we’d
estimate at a minimum of 120k as it sped off into the distance.
It’s a series of long straight stretchs so in a very brief bit of time this
snarly little Hot Rod had already gotten maybe 3 or so kilometres ahead
down the road and as we came around one bend you could see the tail
lights going up the next hill at the far end.
All of a sudden, the tail lights swerved back and forth violently and you
could see the the headlights suddenly point to the rock face on the
right side of the highway as the car went sideways off the road and
it ended up against the rock wall, spun around until only one headlight
was almost pointing straight back towards our approach through an
immense cloud of flying airborne snow .
Two other cars coming from the opposite direction were very close to
the accident and as we came up on the scene they had already pulled
over and in the 2 minutes it took us to get there, one driver was already
out and had crossed the road.
As we got right to the scene, it became immediately apparent why the
crash had occurred because in the cool of a -18C/0F January winter near
midnight, there were not only car parts, but hot, literally steaming, fresh
bloody bits of deer, legs, guts and carcass scattered all over the road.
We had to weave through the very gross and chunky mess to get past.
You could see that the Pocket Rocket had hit the deer at very high speed
with the passenger side right front corner, obliterating the animal, spinning
the car around and taking out the passenger side headlight along with
ripping off the bumper pad, crushing in the whole grille/rad front end,
buckling up the hood and pushing both the passenger front fender and
wheel/suspension, back towards the shattered windshield. You could see
by the puffy shapes within that both front airbags had been detonated.
It looked like a total wreck.
The moral of the story in 5 parts...
In this case it was a compact low-slung import car, but we’ve
been passed by mini-vans and SUV's going just as fast in the
middle of the night, in which case the outcome could be a lot
worse for the passengers riding in vehicles with far higher
centres of gravity that are statistically prone to roll-overs in
side-sliding or spinning accidents.
Be thankful it was not a moose. Hitting a moose at almost any speed
equals “Game Over” for virtually everyone because the centre of the
weight is up at roughly 1.5 metres/6 ft. on tall legs, where it can come
right through the windshield. There are moose crossing warning signs
in many of the regional roads in this area and roaming moose may be
encountered anywhere, with or without signs. A healthy, large, northern
male deer can exceed 400 Lbs., a healthy male moose can exceed 1,300 lbs.
It’s not just “winter” it’s any other spring, summer, fall, year-round low
light situation, like “night” or “foggy” or “rainy”, or any other time when
visibility is reduced.
Slow down and be a few minutes later instead of grossly injured,
eternally dead or killing something else.
There is not anywhere you need to be so badly to warrant excessive
speed and zero safe reaction time to a bounding deer, or heaven forbid,
a moose, on a black as ink night because whatever advantage the high
speed gets you is not even close to being worth a catastrophic crash.
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