Kelowna RCMP are trying shed some light on Tuesday morning's traffic circus on the Bennett Bridge.
A 3 vehicle collision happened on the eastbound side of the bridge and RCMP were called at around 7:30am. Corporal, Jesse O'Donaghey says all 3 vehicles were heavily damaged and considered, “a chain reaction collision, where it’s believed the driver of a GMC pickup rear-ended a Dodge Ram which was then pushed into the end of a Dodge Caravan.”
About 45 minutes after the initial call to police, the bridge was fully re-opened for eastbound drivers, although the traffic snarl took hours to recover from the delay. O'Donaghey says crews weren't allowed to tow the vehicles until due diligence was done, “We do have that responsibility to all the parties involved to ensure that all possible evidence is collected. The information gathered by the police at those scenes can often become an integral part of any future, either criminal proceedings or civil court proceedings.”
Even though it didn't create the same kind of headlines, O'Donaghey says it was actually the second bridge crash of Tuesday morning. Just before 7:00am, the driver of a westbound truck pulled over to check a trailer problem, the truck following behind stopped, but a third vehicle rear-ended the truck and hit the guard rail.
The court of stuck-in-traffic public opinion may want to see licenses taken, bridge privileges revoked and public shamings for the traffic infractions, but in the court of real life it could happen to any one of us, and the punishment was mostly just given to the vehicles involved. “In one of the particular crashes a violation ticket was issued to one of the drivers as a result but no criminal charges are being laid in either of the cases,” said O’Donaghey.