Man dead after 3 commercial trucks collide on Highway 401

By The Canadian Press

A 59-year-old man is dead after a collision involving three commercial trucks on Ontario’s busiest highway.

OPP Sgt. Kerry Schmidt said the crash took place Friday morning on a stretch of Highway 401 near Cambridge, Ont.

He said the collision involved two transport trucks and a dump truck.

It appeared one transport truck ran into the back of another, pushing it into the dump truck, which had slowed because of traffic in the area, Schmidt said.

The driver of one of the transport trucks, who was trapped in his vehicle and had to be extricated, was pronounced dead at the scene, Schmidt said. He was later identified as Abdual Waheed of Ajax, Ont.

“Absolutely devastating seeing this kind of trauma,” Schmidt said at the scene of Friday’s collision. “Apparently traffic was moving slowly prior to the collision taking place.”

 

The collision comes a day after provincial police announced they were putting commercial truck drivers “on notice” in the wake of three crashes involving large trucks that claimed a total of six lives.

OPP Commissioner Vince Hawkes had announced Thursday that three drivers had been charged after their trucks allegedly crashed into traffic that was stopped or had slowed down due to road construction or a collision.

Two of those collisions occurred on Highway 401, one near Port Hope, Ont., on Aug. 3, and the other in Chatham-Kent, Ont., on July 30. The third occurred on Highway 48 in Georgina, Ont., on July 27.

The Ontario Trucking Association said Friday that the industry’s commitment to road safety is at an all-time high.

Between 1995 and 2014 there was a 66 per cent decline in the fatality rate from large truck collisions, while at the same time large truck vehicle registrations have increased by 75 per cent, it said in a release.

“Our industry is committed to safety. The stats reflect that as do the actions of the vast majority of the professional operators on Ontario’s highways,” said OTA president Stephen Laskowski.

The OTA is part of an upcoming working group with the Ministry of Transportation and the OPP to develop strategies to reduce distracted and aggressive driving, the association said.

 

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