JEFF OUTHIT OF THE RECORD LOOKS AT CRASH STATISTICS

Last Saturday's Waterloo Region Record carried this column by Jeff Outhit titled "Look more closely when fatal crashes repeat". Jeff is referring to the fatal crash involving a young woman at Hespeler and Maple Grove Roads last April. Jeff lists the number of crashes, particularily involving left turns over the years at this intersection, including injuries and one more fatality. Clearly the optics or the speeds or the lights themselves are giving drivers difficulties. Jeff suggests that the Region need to do a safety review of this intersection and hopefully determine the problem. Then if it is possible make changes or improvements that again hopefully will reduce the number and severity of the collisions. My suspicion is still that having a traffic light at the bottom of a long downhill grade in which loaded tractor trailers are travelling at highway speeds is a disaster waiting to happen. That combined with drivers waiting for the heavy traffic flow to stop so that they can make their turn before cross traffic starts up narrows the time window unacceptably. The drivers feel rushed and meanwhile the truck driver is also rushed due to the previously mentioned (last week) shorter caution lights of the last several years. This all adds up to a dangerous intersection.