Fatal overpass crash was preventable like our daughter's, Garnish couple says
A couple from Garnish are calling for better safety features on Newfoundland and Labrador overpasses, after a recent fatal accident brought back memories of their own daughter's death 10 years ago.
Brendan Lawlor, 21, died April 8 when his car went off an overpass on Pitts Memorial Drive and crashed on Richard Nolan Drive below.
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In July 2005, Barbara and Reuben Noseworthy lost their daughter Johanna, as well as Reuben's mother, Alice Noseworthy, in an accident that was very similar to the one on April 8.
After hearing the news of the Pitts Memorial crash, the couple are speaking out for greater safety on the province's overpasses.
In an interview with St. John's Morning Show host Anthony Germain, Barbara said she and her husband want government to construct better barriers so that cars can't plummet off the edge so easily.
"How come there isn't something to prevent them from going over?" she said. "Something to keep them from getting out there in the first place or actually going over."
Johanna was driving from Garnish, on the Burin Peninsula, with her grandmother in 2005 when she lost control of the car she was driving while they were in an eastbound lane on the Trans-Canada Highway near the Kenmount Road turnoff.
According to her parents, she went off an overpass and crashed on the road below, killing both her and her grandmother.
Reuben agrees with his wife that a better design for the guardrails may have saved his daughter's life, and could prevent similar accidents from happening again.
"All it takes, basically, is extend the guard rail and move them over and stop the way for cars to go out there, because this has happened three times now," he said.
"Cars go out there and they shouldn't be able to go out there. If there had been a curved guard rail there where she could have hit, we wouldn't have had a fatality."
Understanding what happened 10 years ago
Johanna's parents have been able to somewhat reconstruct what happened 10 years ago on that day, and they hope others can learn lessons based on what they now know.
"We believe that someone made a bad lane change," said Reuben.
"When they made that lane change near the overpass that goes over Karwood Drive, Johanna avoided an accident. The police agree with this, and she went out in the median," he said.
Data from the car's "black box" indicated Johanna accelerated, perhaps missing the brake, drove onto the median and dropped to the highway below.
Reuben thinks his daughter may have missed the brake because she was wearing flip-flops.
"We think maybe her shoe came off and got tangled up under the brake pedal, and that's why she accelerated," he said.
"So a lesson to young drivers out there — never drive with flip-flops."
A 'burning question'
Barbara said the Pitts Memorial Drive accident on April 8 immediately brought back memories of the day she went to see the scene of her daughter's crash
"The similarities were instantly aware for us. We just kind of looked at each other and said, 'That's exactly what happened to Johanna,' " she said.
"Johanna's car did nose-dive like the other car on Pitts Memorial Drive — we didn't have the fire issue, that didn't happen, but she did impact nose-first into the ground. Her car actually flipped over onto the roof on the guard rail."
Both parents are still questioning how the cars were able to get down on the ground below, and think the accidents could have been much worse if there had been a vehicle below when the cars fell.
"I've always been very thankful that there wasn't any traffic in the road below," said Barbara.
"How did she do it? Why was she able to go out there? It's been a burning question."