A New Brunswick fire chief is warning drivers to slow down when visibility is reduced after at least 15 vehicles got stuck in a series of collisions on a snowy highway.
RCMP say the main pileup occurred Tuesday morning just before 9 a.m., on Highway 11 at the bridge in Cocagne, N.B. Police blamed “blowing snow and whiteout conditions” for the crashes, which closed the highway.
Cocagne Fire Chief Steven Goguen told CTV Atlantic that first responders used the jaws of life to help two elderly people out of a vehicle. They were sent to hospital with minor injuries, he said.
RCMP said that four people in total were transported to hospital.
Goguen urged drivers to slow down when winds pick up and visibility is reduced.
“When it comes to complete whiteouts near the bridges and that, snow goes over the road, you just don’t see where you’re going,” he said.
Goguen said that crashes on Highway 11 are common and that twinning the road would make it safer. A planned twinning project was recently scrapped by the new Progressive Conservative provincial government.
Shirley Albert, who manages a restaurant near where the pileup occurred, agreed that collisions are common.
“It’s often enough,” she said. “And I have a lot of customers that complain about that.”
