A8 - The Terrace Standard, Wednesday, January 22, 2003

Black ice road cond

itions

pegged as accident cause

By SARAH A,

ZIMMERMAN
4 LOCAL coroner is mak-
ing no recommendations
stemming from his invest-
igation into the death of a
popular Terrace conserva-
tion officer over one year
ago.

“Recommendations are
made if there is some op-
portunity to prevent a
death of a similar kind in
the future,” says coroner
Art Erasmus, who invest-
igated the Dec. 8, 2001
death of Adrian Juch.

“In this case he hit just
an absolutely wet, black
ice piece of absolutely
straight road and Jost con-
trol of the vehicle.”

Erasmus says Juch en-
countered the worst pos-
sible road conditions fa-
cing northerners the day of
the accident.

The 42-year-old Terrace
man was driving his son,
then eight years ald, to a
hockey tournament in Ha-
zelton when he lost control
of his vehicle, crossed the
centre line and crashed
head-on into an oncoming
Ford pickup truck.

Juch was killed instant-
ly and his son was hospita-
lized with non-life threa-
tening injuries.

The accident happened

55km east of Terrace on
Hwy 16.

Questions were raised
at the lime as to road con-
ditions and whether or not
road maintenance stan-
dards were adhered to.

The report ~ a compila-
tion of facts surrounding
Juch’s death ~ indicates

toad conditions were very

poor when the accident

happened but road mainte-.

hance equipment and
crews were on the highway
as scheduled.

“Abrasives and de-icing
materials were being ap-
plied according to the
standard set out by the
Ministry of Highways,” the
repott says. ,

Whether those stan-
dards are high enough for
northern roads has been
called into question in the
past, but Erasmus says it’s
impossible for contractors
to be on every poor siretch
of highway at all times.

“The expectation that
somebody should make all
parts of the road not slip-
pery in our part of the
country, on our roads, is
impossible,” he says.

“Given the combination
of temperature, precipita-

tion, frost in the ground.

and other conditions that
lead to the formation of
ice on road surfaces.”

The report clearly de-
monstrates that road con-
ditions varied at various
points of the highway the
day of Juch’s accident.

“The road conditions

were changing - there was:

no ice in Terrace and as

you went east it got

worse,” Erasmus says.
Conditions were so poor

in the Hazelton area. that
4km east of the accident
site, the driver of the Ford
pickup passed the mainte-
nance contractor's salt and

sand truck which had stop-

ped so that the driver
could tighten the tire
chains, the report reads.

EPILEPSY
CANADA

1-514-845-7855
1-877-SEIZURE

www.epllepsy.ca

Art Erasmus

The coroner’s investiga-
tion looked into weather
\patterns on the day of and,
the day before. the acci-°
‘dent.

Temperatures for both

days ranged from a few
degrees above zero de-
grees Celsius during the
day to zero and below in
the evening and overnight.

The report shows Juch’s

Jeep sport utility vehicle

was not equipped with
winter rated tires but had
Goodyear Workhorse tires
with 13mm of tread Te-
maining.

“My comment is “that
from, personal experience,
and from what I hear from
other coroners and tire
people, is winter rated
tires give better traction
than all season tires,” Er-
asmus says.

“Whether that would
have prevented this partic-
ular accident under those
conditions is unknown.”

‘Road conditions were
so icy the day of the acci-

dent that RCMP collision

analysts were unable to
determine how fast either
of the vehicles involved
were going.

“Any tire or scrape
marks that’ might have
been evident on the icy
surface at the time of the
collision melted away be-

fore they could be
“examined,” the repart
SAYS,

It also states the driver
of the other vehicle said
he was only going 30
km/hr at the time of the
accident because the roads
were so bad. He estimated
that Juch was not going
very fast either.

Erasmus signed off on
the report Dec. 3, 2002 just

five days before the one.

year anniversary of Juch’s
death.

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