Highway 11 closes because of low visibility due to blowing snow from high winds, ice accumulation, and snow falls that make it impossible for snow plows to keep up here.
Drivers are not prepared for it. All it takes is for a transport (or any vehicle) to get a little close to the ditch to get pulled in and stuck. Or a bit of ice to be in the other lane.
Vehicles go over train tracks and snow falls off them making it slushy and icy for the next vehicle. Creates lots of drag and pull. Often with ice. There is a corner after train tracks on hwy 11 where every year there is at least a few vehicle in the ditch.
Drivers are also not slowing down. They can’t see over 5 feet in front of them but still do 90kmh. Can’t even see oncoming traffic due to blowing snow.
The focus should not be over how long highways are shut down for, like what the article is saying, or finding detours. It should be on how to make roads safer. And unfortunately it would mean sometimes closing roads so people don’t die.
Put street lights to see through the blowing snow all up highways.
Get more snow plows. Salt and sand. But carefully. Salt doesn’t work at -30°C. Over sanding is just as slippery.
Also those detours are often on roads which aren’t closed but haven’t been plowed or maintained either.
It could be that now the highway closes to try to lower those numbers. Per article it says you’re 3 to 9x more likely to die on northern Ontario.
11 deaths this winter with all the closures we have had- That is wild.
I don’t think their solution of making another lane will fix this problem. If you’ve seen how plowing works here when there is 2 lanes in one direction, you’ll know only 1 gets cleared. Plows can’t keep up with a 2 lane Highway. A 3 lane Highway just means that one lane will get ignored till the snow storm stops.