Medical examiner calls for Highway 63 to be twinned

Critics are calling for the busy highway running from Edmonton to Fort McMurray to be twinned, after an accident early Tuesday morning claimed the lives of two oilsands workers.

About 3 a.m. Tuesday, a semi with a load of logs swerved to miss another semi that had pulled onto the side of Highway 63. Part of the parked truck was jutting into the road and the logging truck clipped it, causing logs to fly from the bed.

Two Calgary men in a minivan travelling in the opposite direction were killed when a log hit their vehicle.

Dr. John O'Connor, a medical examiner in Fort McMurray, says if there were double lanes on the road, the semi would have had room to move around the parked vehicle.

"What happened was something that occurred purely by chance. But in all likelihood, it would not have happened if the road had been twinned, if there had been enough space between the logs and the oncoming traffic," he said. "In other words, if there had been another lane or two."

Bart Johnson, spokesman for Alberta Transportation, told the Canadian Press that engineering work has begun on twinning the highway but there is no timeline for construction to begin.

Last summer, Transportation Minister Lyle Oberg said he would like to see Highway 63 twinned within seven years.

The amount of traffic travelling to Fort McMurray has increased as development in the oilsands has exploded.

"We've never come across a situation like this, when we've had such consistency in terms of fatal and non-fatal injury due to a single problem," O'Connor said. "The fact that we have a road that should have been twinned years ago and is the continuing cause of death and injury for so many people."

Twenty-two people have died in accidents along the highway in the past five years, while more than 250 people have been injured.

with files from the Canadian Press