BARRIE, Ont. — Moments before he cranked the steering wheel on his 900-kilogram missile of metal and rubber, Glenn Wright was in his element.

It was about noon on Sunday (Jan. 19), and the 43-year-old trucker was hauling a load of motorcycle parts from North Bay, Ont., to Wisconsin. The radio was silent, Highway 400 looked good, and he felt relaxed despite the sudden snow squall that had erased the blue skies under which he’d set off about two and a half hours earlier.

Then a row of red tail lights pierced the gloom – straight ahead and coming up fast.

“I realized I couldn’t stop in time. And I went to the right. Just found a hole real quick and kept on going,” said Wright, a soft-spoken North Bay resident.

He zigzagged his tractor-trailer around two crashed cars, pumping the brakes before rolling to a stop in the bushes. He peered outside and saw the disaster he had narrowly avoided exacerbating: a pileup that would grow to more than 30 vehicles.

Wright’s quick actions have garnered kudos from Ontario police, pats on the back from trucker colleagues, and a “hero” label from at least one driver who said Wright saved her life by veering away from smaller vehicles strewn across the highway.

“We could’ve been looking at a [fatality],” said Ontario Provincial Police Constable David Woodford, who went to the crash scene near Barrie, Ont.

But that pileup and two others on the same highway also highlighted the split-second decisions that determine life or death every winter on Canada’s slick, snow-covered highways.

More than 100 cars were involved in several pileups in Ontario on Sunday, injuring dozens of people and killing one. Police say poor visibility caused by sudden whiteouts had slowed people down, but that poor choices by some drivers made the problems much worse.

“If you can’t see, you shouldn’t be driving,” Constable Woodford said. “You should drive into the shoulder, put your four-way flashers on. If everybody did that we wouldn’t have these collisions. Unfortunately people like to keep driving.”

Asked how many pileups he’s seen over his police career, Constable Woodford gave an exasperated sigh.

“Hundreds,” he said, including three or four already this year. Almost always they’re triggered by the same errors: high speeds, improper lane changes and not adapting to the conditions. “All it takes is one car,” he said.

Wright, who’s never been in a motor accident in his life, said he’s been prepared to face this type of incident ever since he left his job as a forklift operator and took training courses to become a trucker.

Over the past two years, he’s come to love his job: the open road, travelling across Canada and most of the United States, and all the people he meets. But he’s also learned to hate speeders (too reckless) and motorcycles (too hard to see). His worst fear, even before Sunday, was running into a pileup, which gives drivers only a handful of undesirable options.

“Sounds like he did everything right,” said James Mott, senior instructor with Big Rig Driver Education in Edmonton, which offers a range of courses in large-truck driving.

Because tractor-trailers are so heavy, truckers are advised to veer to the nearest shoulder when they see major accidents blocking available lanes, Mr. Mott said.

(Wright estimated his shipment weighed about 900 kilograms – light compared to most loads.)

But even that choice carries significant risks, Mott said. If a driver swerves too quickly, or at too steep an angle, he could jackknife and roll over. And if he slams into the bank too quickly he also risks being sucked into the ditch and injured, instead of gliding beside it, Mott said.

On Sunday, after Wright’s truck was pulled out of the snow, he continued south, reaching Toronto before a dispatcher at ProNorth Transportation in North Bay told him to turn around and get some rest.

“I told the boss I’m taking the afternoon off,” Wright said yesterday, laughing.

Last night, he left for Wisconsin again. He’ll do the trip – to North Bay and back – twice before his seven-day shift is over.