Letter: Avoidable tragedies are the hardest to stomach

By Letter to the Editor on December 19, 2024.

Dear editor,

My heart sank yet again when I read the story in the Thursday, Dec. 12 News that four people were killed in a crash on Highway 3 east of Grassy Lake on the Tuesday morning.

The story says an RCMP collision reconstructionist is investigating the cause of the collision, so it’s hard and perhaps unfair to speculate, but let’s consider a few factors: If Highway 3 had been twinned at the section where the crash occurred, would the crash have happened?

Four-lane highways are statistically safer. What were the road conditions at the time? Did the road maintenance crews do their due diligence?

I am an older driver, so I wonder if people in their 80s should be driving on what may have been difficult driving conditions.

Was speed a factor, as in were any of the three involved vehicles going faster than they should have given the road conditions?

The only survivor, the male driver of the third vehicle who received minor injuries, may shed light on these questions.

Highway 3 at the collision location is mostly a straight road and normally has good visibility, yet it seems there are many serious collisions near there. I’m glad to see the provincial government finally twinning Highway 3 from Taber to Burdett, and am sincerely hoping there are fewer such collisions.

Our son is a member of the RCMP and he’s had to attend such crashes, and it’s crushing for the police, the ambulance crews, those other drivers who witness such crashes, and most of all the bereaved families, especially if such tragedies could be avoided.

Ray Marco

Dunmore

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