BRADFORD, Ont. — A tanker truck driver killed in an accident on Hwy. 400 yesterday is being lauded as a hero for directing his tanker off the highway and preventing it from crossing into oncoming traffic.

The accident was triggered by two or three vehicles that were allegedly being driven dangerously. Two drivers have been charged with five offences each, including criminal negligence causing death and street racing.

“I think he’s a hero,” Jane Lennox, a driver who was approaching from the opposite direction, told the Star. She witnessed the crash and was in the path of the tractor-trailer before the driver veered into the opposite ditch. “If he hadn’t corrected himself, he would have hit us head-on and we would have been dead.”

Sgt. Cam Woolley described the accident to local media.

“Two and possibly three automobiles travelling at high speeds in close proximity to each other making lane changes” were the cause, Woolley told Sun Media. “The rig skidded into the left guide rail and then back across the highway and into the ditch.”

“The Mustang cut the truck driver off and he went to the left and then he jackknifed and went into the ditch,” recalled witness Tina Lynn Hannahson. “He’s a hero. He sacrificed himself to save many others who could have killed as well.”

– With files from the Toronto Star and Sun Media