From Dec. 24 until noon on the 29 the RCMP responded to 13 incidents involving motor vehicles in the Elk Valley area. There were eight accidents on Dec. 24, the majority of these were within a 10 minute window. There have been no reported major injuries from the accidents.
“We have had a total of 13 motor vehicle accidents. Dec. 25 was pretty quiet but the 24th was the worst, we had eight motor vehicle accidents over the 24-hour period. Five of them came in between 3:00 and 3:10 pm, sounds like everyone got let out early and it was a little messy, it was snowing at the time,” said Sgt. Will Thien. “In the span of 10 minutes we were responding to a roll over near the Teck recruiting center in Sparwood, near Corbin Road all the way to the ski hill with a couple of roll-overs, people hitting unattended vehicles because of the hilly area near Ridgemont. No one was hurt severely, just minor injuries. There was one on Dec. 26, two on Dec. 27, and so far today we have had one this morning [Dec. 29].”
Thien was happy to see that there were less impaired driving charges than expected from Dec. 24 to the morning of Dec. 29.
“We set up stop checks and counter attacks and we had traffic services here over the past few weeks. They [set up] where the traffic is. We were lucky, I’m keeping my fingers crossed [for the rest of the holidays], from the 24 up until today we have been pretty good,” said Thien.
During the same days last year, there were 12 motor vehicle accidents. Considering that this year has had much more snow and more sever ewinter weather Thien was happy to see less accidents than he predicted.
“We had 12 over the same period last year; it’s right around the same mark. This year everything happened on the 24th. At about 3:00 p.m. to 3:10 p.m., my guys were all over the place with accidents,” said Thien.