A notoriously deadly stretch of highway on the South Island is a little safer today.
The provincial government has quietly installed a drainage trench on a section of the Malahat Highway where water was known to leak onto the road.
It’s the same length of highway where a horrific head-on crash claimed the life of a 33-year-old Saanich man in November.
A pickup truck crossed the centre line of the highway and smashed into a black Mazda, killing the man inside, but officials still haven’t pinpointed the cause.
The chief of the Malahat Fire Department blamed the fatal crash on ice caused by water-run off from a driveway that leads onto the highway, as well as the lack of a median.
Rob Patterson has been fighting for a drainage system for years, and said he is elated that it has finally been installed. The new trench drain diverts water away from the highway and into a catch basin.
“They’ve done a fantastic job by putting in this California drain, which has virtually eliminated any of the water run-off on the road so far,” Patterson said.
But just because the area is a little bit safer, drivers still need to be using their road sense, Patterson said.
“You don’t know when the temperature’s going to drop,” he said. “Up here on the ‘Hat, it fluctuates a few degrees above and below freezing many times throughout the day. It’s not uncommon to see an icy stretch at two in the afternoon.”
The work was completed just before Christmas, the Ministry of Transportation said.
