Drinking & Driving Offences
Accidents
Criminal Offences
Insurance
Court Location & Information
Offences in NY and Quebec
Appeals & Re-Openings
How to Defend Yourself
News and Articles
Case Laws

News and Articles

09/21/2005
401 snarled after crash kills two

Police find second body in wrecked car hours after collision Unsafe lane change blamed for accident just after midnight

MATTHEW KWONG STAFF REPORTER

Police are blaming speed and an unsafe lane change for a fiery highway collision that claimed two lives early yesterday morning and snarled traffic for nearly 12 hours.

The driver of a 2005 Chevrolet Cobalt was heading west on Highway 401 in the left lane of the collectors, west of Kennedy Rd., when the car swerved into a tractor-trailer hauling more than 25,000 kilograms of newsprint and travelling in the same direction.

Wedged under the rig, the Cobalt skidded along the barriers before erupting into flames, police said.

Ontario Provincial Police investigators believe the driver lost control while attempting to switch lanes. A test of the device that controls the airbags revealed a speed of about 160 km/h, OPP Sgt. Cam Woolley said.

"You shouldn`t be fearful of trucks, but you`ve got to be respectful of them," Woolley said. "(The car) began to make a lane change, the driver lost control and he actually swerved under the wheels of the big rig."

Police found two bodies - one of them a 22-year-old man - inside the burned-out Cobalt after the crash, which occurred around 12:20 a.m. Police believe both victims are males and one of them was a visa student from another country. Both are believed to be from the Toronto area, Woolley said.

Police found the second body in the wreckage hours after the crash. The victims` names were not released, pending notification of their families. Both the car and the tractor-trailer, which was loaded with large rolls of paper, were engulfed in flame. Emergency crews were still on the scene at 9 a.m., preparing to remove the charred remains of he cobalt.

The driver of the rig was unhurt, even htough the tractor-trailor crashed into the median and roled over.

"The car was completeely crashed," Wooley said. "the number on cause of crashs between cas and trucks is what we see here - an unsafe lane chang."

At rush hour ysterday, thousands of morning commutrs slowly inched their cars along the highway as OPP investigators surveyed the crash site. The wstbound express lane west of McCowan Rd. reopened just before noon.