"A life would have been saved today with a concrete median barrier,” Alysson Storey, founder of Build the Barrier, said.
Storey was referring to the tragic event early Friday morning when a tractor trailer heading westbound on Hwy. 401 in Chatham crossed the median and collided with another semi that was heading east.
The collisions claimed the life of one of the drivers and Storey said the other suffered life threatening injuries.
According to Storey, Build the Barrier is a grassroots group advocating for concrete median barriers between Tilbury and London and is backed by MPPs Rick Nicholls and Jeff Yurek.
"When I read the news this morning, I was devastated," Storey said. "I was devastated, but I was not surprised. With all of the incidents this year on this stretch of highway, it was sadly just a matter of time until our odds ran out."
According to Storey the stretch of highway, which she calls "Carnage Alley," was responsible for five deaths and ten serious injuries last year. She said 2018 continues to see a high rate of incidents on Hwy. 401, but Friday's tragedy was preventable.
"We’re two days into the official busy summer season and we're starting with a fatality," Storey said. "We will be contacting Premier-Designate Ford's office to make sure he knows that people are dying on the roads in his province and we need action now. And action means a concrete median barrier."
Storey said as of 4pm Friday, all lanes in both directions of Hwy. 401 remain closed. Lanes are closed eastbound from Bloomfield Rd. in Chatham and Hwy. 77 in Essex and westbound between Queens Line in Tilbury and County Rd. 42 in Essex.
She added emergency detour routes in Chatham-Kent are also backed up for kilometres causing traffic throughout the municipality.
