Dashcam video shows semi crossing double yellow line to pass on Highway 5

The mayor of Clearwater, B.C., says a video showing a close call involving a commercial truck reinforces the urgent need for road safety improvements.

Around 7 p.m. on Friday on Highway 5, just south of Clearwater, dashcam footage captured a semi-truck crossing a double solid yellow line to pass another semi.

The driver who filmed it needed to pull over and onto the shoulder to avoid being hit head-on.

“This seems to be happening far too often and it seems the most extreme examples are commercial truckers,” Clearwater Mayor Merlin Blackwell told Global News Monday.

He said there has been an increase in enforcement but Clearwater only has two members of the highway patrol after one retired. Blackwell said that, realistically, the force in that area should have four or five members.

Blackwell added that they have had many RCMP members retire recently and there is no one taking their places.

“People don’t want to do this business anymore, the policing business. It hasn’t actually had the shine or the attraction it had maybe 20, 30 years ago. It has become social work and it isn’t always as shiny as it was in the past.”

1:53 Close call caught on camera on Highway 5

Blackwell said he thinks drivers need more training to drive commercial trucks and delivery and shipping times are forcing drivers to make erratic moves in order to reach their destination on time.

He has met with Public Safety Minister Mike Farnworth and Transportation Minister Rob Fleming, and Blackwell said Farnworth told them the province is adding about 50 more RCMP officers this year and about 100 next year before it continues other years.

But Blackwater said there is an additional issue with this stretch of road.

“One of the biggest problems we have here, and I’ve spoken to Minister Fleming and Minister Farnworth about this, is that we have 130 kilometres without a passing lane so it’s one way each way,” he said.

“That would be the equivalent of driving from Simon Fraser turnoff at Gaglardi all the way to Hope without a single opportunity to have a two-lane passing zone. And that leads to a lot of frustration and bad driver choices.”

He said more passing lanes are needed as a long-term plan.