FEATURE
Improving driving
habits is the best way to
address highway safety
By Craig Slater, Martin Charlton Communications
Improving driving habits and better training for semi-trailer
operators is a smart way to address highway safety in rural
Saskatchewan.
Not only that, but it’s a cost-effective and timely approach, too.
This is according to Shantel Lipp, president of the Saskatchewan
Heavy Construction Association, who adds that constructing
roundabouts at all major rural highway intersections isn’t practical
or necessarily affordable.
The issue stems from the Humboldt Broncos bus crash on
April 6, 2018, which killed 16 people on a Saskatchewan highway
near Tisdale. The crash occurred where Highway 35 meets a secondary
highway, a spot known as Armley Corner.
RCMP are still investigating, but officers say the tractor trailer involved
in the crash was in the intersection at the time of the collision.
There is a stop sign on the highway the tractor trailer was
using. The Broncos’ bus had no stop sign.
One parent of a player killed in the crash called on the provincial
government to look at constructing roundabouts at high-traffic
intersections, including the site of the tragedy, as a means to safer
roadways.
“I’m not sure it’s something we’ll see in Saskatchewan,” said
Lipp. “We’re all for driver safety… that’s very important. But roundabouts
are expensive and would take a significant amount of time
to construct.
“We have a lot of rural intersections in this province, probably
more than anywhere else in the country. I don’t think a roundabout
is going to solve the safety problem. I think having intersections in
rural Saskatchewan better signed, better labelled with things like
rumble strips or lights that indicate an important intersection
ahead would probably be of greater value.”
The Saskatchewan government in this year’s budget earmarked
$924 million for highways and infrastructure. Lipp says that dollar
figure would jump considerably for roundabout construction –
roundabouts range in the millions of dollars and would chew up at
least a full season of work for each.
thinkbigmagazine.ca | Quarter 3 2018 | Think BIG 19
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