Residents call for increased safety measures after multi-vehicle crash on Speedvale Avenue in Guelph

A woman involved in a car crash in Guelph last week is raising safety concerns about a stretch of Speedvale Avenue. The multi-vehicle collision at the corner of Speedvale Avenue and Metcalfe Street left her car considered a total write-off.

Brittany Howlett was picking up her son on Feb. 16 around 4:30 p.m. when it happened. The crash was captured on a home surveillance camera.

“It wasn’t enough time to honk or swerve or anything,” said Howlett. “It was really sudden.”

Howett said the road is long and straight without a lot of controlled intersections and needs some type of traffic calming measure to slow down drivers.

“People kind of just fly through, and it’s very tight and uncomfortable to drive on,” she said.

The footage shows Howlett’s car coming to a stop, then being hit first from the front and then from behind.

“The front airbag hit my nose. I have a nice little bruise here still, so my nose was bleeding. I have whiplash, but otherwise, I was really lucky,” Howlett said.

Guelph police said one person was taken to hospital with an arm injury, and a 36-year-old Rockwood man was charged with careless driving.

It was not immediately clear if speed was a possible factor.

RESIDENT EXPRESSES CONCERN ABOUT SPEEDING

Howlett is not the only one calling for more safety measures to be implemented in the area.

Natalie Gohl said she has lived near the intersection for the last 15 years and has seen plenty of accidents in that time.

“Often cars going too quickly or trying to turn, we’ve often asked about stop signs or lights or something, but it hasn’t happened yet,” Gohl said.

“We’ve easily seen people flying at least 80 [km/h], going down 90 [km/h] probably in the middle of the night. We can hear them,” she added. 

Gohl raised concerns about the number of schools in the area and the mass amount of students who are crossing the roads in the mornings and afternoons.

“I walk my own kids to school,” she said. “It gets busy. I won’t let them cross anywhere near here.”

She added that the traffic lights residents want to be installed are not just for driver safety but for the safety of pedestrians.

CITY TO REVIEW ROADWAY

Officials with the City of Guelph said there will be a review of Speedvale Avenue, but said they need more information first.

“The city will definitely review Speedvale within the area,” said Paul Hutchison, traffic engineering supervisor with the City of Guelph. “We are still awaiting the collision report, so once we know more about what happened and what led to the collision, then we would be able to review it appropriately.”

Hutchison said Speedvale Avenue is an arterial roadway and that means the city typically would not implement a traffic calming measure.

Arterial roadways are used to move higher-density traffic through the city.

“We don’t implement traffic calming measures on arterial roadways, however, we can look at it under our community road safety, and things like speed radar boards can be implemented,” he said