Twenty-Car Crash Temporarily Shuts Down Part Of Bayview
Posted December 27, 2006 12:00 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
The chain reaction crash that involved as many as 20 vehicles on the Bayview bridge over Lawrence Wednesday morning was undoubtedly a horror for anyone involved. But the fact that none of those people were seriously injured is more like a miracle.
The worst news in the wake of the 8am pile up was that Bayview was shut down in both directions for an extended period of time.
It’s since reopened, though the area remains littered with smashed up vehicles and skid marks still streak the road from the screeching brakes.
“Everybody started crashing and I slowed down,” recalled Moustafa Moustafa, who was involved in the accident.
“I managed to hit the curb. I didn’t hit anybody. And everybody hit each other and they hit me from the back.”
Others were just thankful they weren’t at the front of the line.
“I was thankful enough I didn’t hit anybody, but my car got beaten up,” said motorist Karla Fernandes.
Icy road conditions are being blamed for the accident, and police are reminding motorists that bridges in particular tend to ice over before most other roads.
And there are obviously a lot of bridges in the GTA, because the Ontario Provincial Police claim to have handled roughly 140 accidents in and around the city on Wednesday morning alone.
“Once it started you couldn’t get out of the way,” said a motorist named Wanda.
“Before I hit the bridge I was thinking the very thought, ‘Where the heck are the salters today?'”
The answer from the City of Toronto is that they were on the way. Sort of.
“With the fast freeze that occurs the weather can change instantaneously so it’s difficult to predict that and it’s difficult for us to be at every bridge at one time,” said spokesman Myles Currie.
Toronto has 24 trucks that use sensors to detect ice on the roads and distribute salt, and once word of the crashes started coming down, they were dispatched immediately.
“Our crews through the winter are on standby 24/7 and our shifts are the same whether it’s a holiday or not,” Currie added.
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