SUSSEX, N.B. – The Road Builders Association of New Brunswick (RBANB) says it warned the province about the dangers of the Sussex interchange before a fatal accident that claimed four lives.

It charges the province ignored the safety recommendations made one year prior to the accident and nothing was done to improve the deadly interchange.

Jim Hughson, executive director of the RBANB, made the startling revelation Nov. 25 that a letter to the ministry outlined concerns that drivers face an abrupt change at the Sussex interchange, after travelling on four-lane highways from Nova Scotia or Point Lepreau.

“And then very abruptly they come to an old two-lane highway and to compound matters, it involved four exits,” Hughson tells local media. “We felt it was a safety problem and should be corrected … It was a significant safety hazard, that’s why I wrote it.”

A public enquiry into the interchange has been called for by Opposition MLA’s following a Nov. 18 accident where a vehicle left the road and came to rest among memorials to the victims of a fatal bush crash in the spring.