WINDSOR, Ont. – The provincial coroner’s office has set June 7 as the beginning of an inquest into an 82-vehicle pile-up that has been described by police as one of the nation’s worst traffic disasters. Eight people were killed and dozens were injured in the Sept. 3 melee.

Truck volumes along the Hwy. 401 stretch that’s become known as Carnage Alley is “one of the issues that will be explored,” Deputy Chief Coroner Dr. Bonita Porter confirms. Nearly a dozen trucks were involved in the crash.

Some 30 witnesses are expected to appear before the inquest, which is scheduled to last several weeks. The jury will review events surrounding the fatalities including traffic volume, weather conditions, speed enforcement, aggressive driving and road engineering. It could make recommendations meant to prevent deaths on this stretch of highway and elsewhere, Porter added.

The series of accidents occurred at about 8 a.m. in a heavy “industrial fog”, five kilometres east of Windsor. Investigators originally blamed weather conditions and aggressive driving.

OPP reported that two tractor-trailers were involved in the initial moments of the pile-up – killing 24-year-old Anne-Marie Strnisa of LaSalle, outside Windsor and leading to a chain of collisions along a two-kilometre stretch. That crash caused an intense fire that incinerated many vehicles, making it difficult for investigators to determine the exact cause of the chain of accidents.

Ontario Provincial Police said Strnisa tried to avoid a parked tractor-trailer in the right lane, but hit it, then swerved into the passing lane, spun around and stopped. She was then rammed by an oncoming tractor-trailer.

Two weeks to the day after the accident, Ontario Transportation Minister David Turnbull announced a five-point plan to improve safety along the 401 between Windsor and London. The announcement built on a technical study of a 65-kilometre stretch of the highway in the Chatham-Kent County corridor, which had already experienced 13 fatalities in the eight months prior to the Windsor crash.

Among the plan’s points were physical highway improvements such as fully paved shoulders and a rumble strip, and reflective pavement markers on curved highway sections. Another was to crack down on aggressive driving, including the hiring of 22 new OPP officers.

In the commercial area, 21 truck enforcement officers were to be hired in southwestern Ontario, there was to be an expansion of hours at the Windsor South truck inspection station on an around-the-clock, seven-day-a-week basis, and expansion of the commercial vehicle impoundment program – so-called Truck Jails for equipment with critical defects – to Windsor South.

The government also set up an advisory group of stakeholders on safe driving, which includes representatives from industry groups such as the Ontario Trucking Association.

Various organizations called for major upgrades to 401. Ontario Trucking Association president David Bradley told business and political leaders at a Trade Corridors Conference in Niagara Falls that the strong growth in international trade has put a severe strain on roads. “Unless Ontario and the federal government agree on a joint strategic plan and funding mechanism to upgrade the province’s highways and border crossings, Ontario-U.S. trade, which accounts for about 40 per cent of provincial GDP, will be slowly strangled,” he said.

Strnisa’s mother pointed the finger at increased truck traffic as a major cause of the accident. “Most of the traffic coming across there is trucks,” Karen Strnisa said. “It’s increasing the danger to everyone on the roads.” She said she would like to see another border crossing that would primarily serve commercial traffic. She called on the province to widen the number of lanes and construct a concrete barrier between eastbound and westbound lanes.

CAA Ontario also called on the province to widen Hwy. 401 to six lanes and to install median barriers in areas where medians are only 10 metres wide. A report on the highway’s safety that was issued last August made a number of recommendations to address possible accident causes, including public education so motorists and truckers can better share roads, and tighter restrictions on commercial drivers’ hours of service.

Said CAA’s David Leonhardt, “This is a very unforgiving highway, totally unsuited for its role as a major trade route.” n