Ahead of more snow in B.C., crews blame ‘unprepared drivers’ for highway gridlock

The Lower Mainland is potentially in for more snow Friday afternoon and evening, but it’s not expected to be the same accumulations we saw during Tuesday’s chaos.

As we gear up for the second snowfall this week, there appears to be some sort of blame game playing out. Crews are mostly placing the blame for what went wrong earlier this week on, what they say, were unprepared drivers.

Mainroad Manager Darren Ell doesn’t think anything went wrong on their end on Tuesday but says too many drivers hit the road at the same time and that’s what caused issues.

“A lot of people started going home at the same time [and] the rush hour began earlier than normal. There were a couple of incidents where a bus spun out or a truck spun out and it was a domino effect from that point on. More and more vehicles started spinning out and losing traction,” he told CityNews.

He also says too much snow fell in a short amount of time, which also complicated things.

“A lot of the vehicles we saw weren’t prepared to be out in that kind of weather, whether they were without snow tires or without proper fuel or emergency supplies, so it just exacerbated the whole event and just made it worse and worse,” he said.

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Just like they said ahead of Tuesday’s storm, Ell maintains they are ready to handle this latest incoming snowfall, adding they’ll be patrolling before it even hits.

He also says they can do their job best when people aren’t on the road.

“That’s the biggest help we can have, when we have unencumbered access to the roads is when we can clean them faster, we can attack them faster and we need the space. The trucks are very comfortable, and the drivers are very capable of getting those roads clean, but they need space to get out there and do that,” he explained.

When it comes to the region’s snow removal budget, Ell doesn’t think more money needs to be spent.

“It’s a very dangerous slope to slide down, in my opinion, because we have some very expensive pieces of equipment that aren’t used a whole lot of the time. We’re not like every other city in Canada where you have four or six months or three months worth of winter, we have very short bursts of winter, so what are we willing to pay for as a taxpayer base?” he asked.

He says there were abandoned vehicles because drivers weren’t prepared with things like sufficient fuel or emergency supplies, and it makes it hard for plows to get around them when left in the street.

Also pointing the blame at drivers for what happened on Tuesday, is the B.C. Trucking Association.

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Association President Dave Earle says their biggest issue is drivers who get in the way of truckers.

“It’s a confounding, recurring, and continuing issue, is drivers getting cut off by other vehicles. When that driver is hanging back and leaving 20 or 30 metres of space between them and the next vehicle, that is not an invitation for somebody to deke into that and try and make space. What ends up happening then is the driver has to jam on their brakes and we end up in a jackknife situation,” he told CityNews.

He says there aren’t many routes truck drivers can take so they will continue using crossings, like the Alex Fraser Bridge, and doing so without chains.

“Throwing on chains we would use on Interior highways is very, very different because you can get into issues around pavement damage and infrastructure damage, as well as it being hard on the vehicles when there’s not a lot of snow down. Some drivers use alternate traction devices, they’ll use cables, you can get textile types of devices that aren’t approved for use on highways, so drivers really have to do their diligence,” he explained.

The provincial government previously said it’s not considering mandating winter-rated snow tires for urban areas, like the Lower Mainland, partially because it would be too hard to enforce.

-With files from Robyn Crawford