Self Explanatory. Kendal's Cousin.To Donna's fiance, family and friends, Kendal and I offer our most sincere condolences. We're very sorry for your loss, and we will miss her as well.
| | Last Updated: Jul 25th, 2006 - 23:54:50 |
The Dunmore intersection where a Saskatchewan woman was killed Monday was already targeted for a safety inspection by Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure engineers.
However, it appears driver error caused Monday’s traffic fatality.
Donna Meisner, 28, of Eston, Saskatchewan died at the scene 11:45 a.m. Monday after her Chevrolet Cavalier traveling west bound in the slow lane of the Trans-Canada-Highway veered directly into the path of an oncoming west-bound tanker truck driven by a 47-year-old man from Swift Current, SA.
The impact occurred at the intersection where Charles Street and Eagle Butte Road meet the TCH.
“All we know is what we were told by witnesses who said the vehicle entered the eastbound lanes. Why or how we have no idea,” Cst. Brandon Smith of Redcliff RCMP said Tuesday.
Information culled from several sources indicates the woman initially found herself traveling east in the TCH’s west-bound lanes after entering the highway from the Dunmore intersection. Realizing her mistake, she reversed direction and headed back toward the intersection from the right hand, slow lane. At the intersection she attempted a hard left turn through the intersection from the slow lane, crossing into the path of the oncoming west-bound tanker truck.
The accident was the third fatality in two years at the Dunmore intersection.
Monday’s crash, however, appears to be more about tragic timing than engineering or design flaws.
“It just happened to happen here, so it’s being tied in with other collisions that happened at this intersection, when in actual fact that’s really just coincidental,” Cypress County manager Lutz Perschon says.
“But it has raised the issue (of the intersection’s safety) again, obviously.”
In Alberta, all major highways are the purview of the Ministry of Infrastructure and Transportation.
However, Perschon says Cypress County reviews all accidents at the Dunmore intersection. The cause of every accident reviewed “generally is to do with driver error,” he said.
“Technically, the intersection is safe,” Perschon added. “Why there is a proliferation of collisions at the intersection is a bit of a mystery to us, but they happen. So obviously there is something there.”
The transportation ministry has already reviewed the Dunmore highway corridor as a preliminary step in what is a two-year study into the possibility of a Medicine Hat bypass being constructed for the Trans-Canada-Highway.
Planning engineer Jerry Lau says that highway interchanges (overpasses) at either end of Dunmore could be included in the project.
However, Lau cautions that the “Highway 1 & 3 Network Functional Planning Study” must be completed first; that is expected in Fall 2007.
“That doesn’t mean we’re not doing anything at the Eagle Butte Road intersection,” Lau says.
The province is currently in discussion with Cypress County on options which include improving the turning lanes at the intersection, partial closure (closing off the median), or even full closure of the intersection.
Does yesterday’s fatality hasten that process?
“Certainly we regret any fatality on our highway, and when they occur, we investigate,” Lau said.
“In this particular case, it appears the lady was making an illegal maneuver, so there wouldn’t have been much we could have done to prevent that.”
© Copyright by Medicine Hat News.com
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