Red Hill collisions: Bad road or bad drivers?
Users have their say over whether drivers or road design make the highway so tricky
A discussion erupted Sunday in response to news of 10 collisions being reported on the Red Hill Valley Parkway on Saturday.
Hamilton Police eastern division acting Staff Sgt. Greg Jackson attributed the mess to a "combination of people's driving, the rain and road conditions."
But whenever there's a major crash on the highway, like the one that killed two recent high school grads earlier this year, the question arises: Is the road inherently unsafe?
Here's some of the discussion, which played out on Twitter, Facebook and Reddit.
'I think people need to realize that they need to drive appropriate to the weather'
One commenter on Reddit contributed a perspective from someone who was in one of the crashes:
"A driver was going northbound in the right lane and his tire blew out, causing him to lose control, pass the left lane, go through the median, pass the left southbound lane and hit the front of our car," the commenter wrote. "They were then rear ended which cause a chain reaction with a couple of cars behind them."
Jackson said drivers need to slow down in rainy conditions and pay more attention to the road.
"I think people need to realize that they need to drive appropriate to the weather conditions," Jackson said.
Three of the 10 collisions involved minor injuries but there were no major injuries reported, Jackson said. Police shut down the southbound lanes of the parkway from the QEW to King Street for about two hours while officers responded to some of the multiple-vehicle collisions.
After two recent high school graduates died in a crash on the Red Hill in May, the city said it was looking into improvements for the highway, possibly including lighting and guardrails.