Student videos helping in fight for new highway

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EDMUNDSTON, N.B. — Students at Universit de Moncton’s Edmundston campus are calling on governments to twin the highway a Quebec coroner is calling extremely deadly.

By launching two videos at the Edmundston campus Monday the student council wants to show politicians just how dangerous this stretch of the Trans Canada Highway can be.

Quebec coroner Yvan Turmel described Highway 185 as “extremely deadly” following an investigation into a two-vehicle crash which killed eight people in December 2001.

There have been 120 deaths on Highway 185, between Riviere-du-Loop and the New Brunswick border, since January 1990. Quebec coroner, Yvan Turmel, is recommending to both the federal and Quebec transport ministers the two-lane highway, used by 10,000 vehicles a day, be widened to four lanes and separated by a median.

Turmel’s recommendation is exactly what students in the ‘185 kills’ campaign want to happen.

“Since the first of December 2001 there have been 21 deaths on the highway. A lot of them are head-on collisions that wouldn’t happen if it was four lanes,” said student council president Martin La Chapelle.

The student council launched two videos highlighting the dangers of the highway in the campus auditorium Monday.

The first video, Decision without Return, includes testimonials from families who have lost loved ones on Highway 185 or those seriously injured in crashes and emergency response crews.

A second film, Murderous Road, was shot while driving for five minutes on the TransCanada and demonstrates how dangerous it can be. Copies of both have been send to federal and provincial politicians.

The student council has also used the videos to make presentations to high school students, and have inspired students of CED High School to send 1,700 postcards to Quebec Premier Bernard Laundry urging him to address the issue.

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