Even here in Shanghai I heard about the firey truck crash that closed the 401 for most of yesterday and on into today.
(Understand that when you're twelve hours ahead as I am, 'yesterday' and 'today' have variable meaning...).
But as I have mentioned before, what's with Mavis Road? Why do so many serious crashes seem to happen around there?
Perhaps it is because it lies between where I live and where I usually want to go that I am more aware of crashes around there than I might be on other parts of the 401.
But it seems it's never Winston Churchill. Never Mister-and-Mississauga Road/Erin Mills Parkway. Never Hurontario Street.
It's always Mavis Road.
Is there something special about that part of the highway? Any reason why crash frequency seems to be so high?
Now, a lot of cars enter the highway at Erin Mills - the eastbound back-up from there is usually prodigious. Could the added traffic volume be part of it?
(Although at 4:30 a.m. when this truck crash went down, it's normally not THAT bad...).
Once that bottleneck is cleared, the speed picks up, as traffic-frustrated drivers try to make up for lost time.
Might THAT be part of it?
The eastbound highway goes over a crest at Erin Mills, curves slightly left, dips into a valley, rises again to the Mavis Road interchange, then plateaus and is more-or-less flat from there to Highway 410.
The road is as straight as modern highway-building equipment can make it; the pavement was re-done recently.
There don't seem to be any geographical or highway-design issues in play here.
Does anybody even have a guess as to why crashes seem so frequent there?
Maybe Ontario's Ministry of Transportation and/or the O.P.P. have crash data which might shed light on whether there is in fact a 'cluster' at this location.
If so, maybe they can find an answer.
Sure beats me.
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