Careless driving charges laid in Elie crash

A man from Warren is facing charges after a pickup truck rear-ended a semi-trailer truck on the Trans-Canada Highway in Elie Monday night.

RCMP say the pickup truck towing a trailer crashed into a semi stopped at a red light in the westbound lane of the Trans-Canada Highway at the intersection of Highway 248 about 7:40 p.m.

The man driving the pickup, 41, and his passenger, a boy, 16,were trapped in the truck and had to be extracted. Both were taken to hospital with minor injuries.

The driver of the semi, 36,was not injured.

RCMP say the driver of the pickup has been charged with careless driving.

"In the past few weeks, we have been attending far too many serious collisions, and many of those are occurring at intersections," said Sgt. Mark Hume, RCMP Manitoba West traffic services unit commander. "Intersections are inherently more dangerous than straightaways you have traffic going in all different directions, doing different speeds and having different rights of way.

"Drivers absolutely need to be alert when on the road, and especially at intersections. We could have had two more deaths last night."