Police say speed and an unsecured load may have been contributing factors that resulted in a logging truck flipping north of Campbell River Tuesday morning, spilling its load across Highway 19.
"We have several witnesses that described it as the driver did, which is saying that as he was coming into the corner, his trailer started going onto his side," said Const. Dave Dormuth of North Island Traffic Services.
Dormuth said the truck was headed northbound around 10 a.m. and was approximately eight kilometres north of Campbell River near Barge Terminal Road when the crash occurred, but thankfully no other vehicles were involved.
The driver was uninjured but the truck, owned by Critical Site Logging, was damaged when it landed passenger-side down facing north in the southbound lane.
"He tried everything he could think of to pull it out but once it started going over it was going over," Dormuth said.
The spill initially blocked both lanes but another self-loading logging truck that happened upon the scene removed the logs, while others remained at the side of the highway and down into a ditch.
Traffic was intermittently stopped and then reverted to single-lane alternating traffic for a few hours following the crash as crews dealt with the truck as well as a fuel spill on the roadway.
"It was less than 200 litres that we have to report thankfully, there was no puncture in the tank, it was just slowly leaking out," said Damian Girard, manager of Mainroad Campbell River.
Girard said despite the crash, diversions and clean-up went smoothly.
Dormuth said logging truck crashes are unfortunately not a rare occurrence.
"We average four or five a year on different various roads here due to corners and speed."
