Over the last several years I have driven Alberta Highway 63 from Grasslands Alberta to Fort McMurray Alberta a number of times. Due to the high number of fatal accidents on this route the road was called the “Highway of Death”
Young people and single lanes
The median age of the population of Fort McMurray Alberta is about thirty. As a young man in my late teen years and through my twenties I certainly felt immortal on occasion and behaved accordingly. My driving technique was styled accordingly.
Insurance companies have known this about young males for years (based on actuarial analysis) and rates for this gender and age group are accordingly high to reflect the risk of insuring them.
When I first started traveling on the “Highway of Death” it was single lanes in both directions for the full route (with the occasional passing lane on hills).
In addition to pick-up trucks and passenger vehicles, large tanker, construction vehicles and oil equipment trucks regularly transverse this highway – bringing supplies to Fort McMurray and dead-heading back. Typically these vehicles travel slower encouraging the more agile vehicles to attempt to pass in the oncoming traffic lane.
Males that believe they are invincible, single lanes and slower large vehicle traffic combine to create a perfect storm, hence the high fatality rate.
A real example
I have an interesting personal example of incredible reckless driving to share ( unfortunately only one of several). This occurred in December several years ago. It was snowing, visibility was a couple of meters at the most and I was at the end of a train of four vehicles traveling around seventy to eighty kilometers an hour due to weather conditions.
The car behind me swung out into the oncoming traffic lane and sped past my own and the other three vehicles at probably more than one-hundred and twenty kilometers, on a snow covered road with little visibility.
If not a death wish than the driver must have believed they were invulnerable. Fortunately good luck prevailed on this occasion.
Two Lanes
On my last trip, a week ago, the twinning of the highway (which has been under construction for the last five years) was virtually finished, with only one small five kilometer section of single lane left to complete.
What a difference. Kudos to the builders of the highway, this was badly needed although the timing for the finishing is a little off given the current oil industry doldrums. Oh well, guess it will still be two lanes each way when the industry gets back into an up-swing.