The intersection at the Hart Highway and Kenworth Road

By Tommy Osborne

Fatality

Fatality on Hart Highway has businesses calling for action

Dec 14, 2023 | 4:41 PM

PRINCE GEORGE – Following the fatality of a pedestrian on the Hart Highway last night, several community members are calling for action to make the highway safer. Spotless Uniform is just steps away from where the accident took place, Spotless Uniform’s Service Manager Ashley Doerksen explained this unfortunately is all too common.

“People are absolutely flying by and you can’t see anything when you’re there. The winter is even worse because of the snow piles on either side of the highway, so then you almost have to inch out to be able to see, to be able to pull out and go. There’s been probably five or six employees from here alone that have been in accidents trying to get out of here,” Doerksen said when explaining how difficult it is to get out of the parking lot.

Jody Cusker is one of several employees who has been in an accident at the intersection, and she says something has to be done to make it safer.

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“I thought I was going to die. I ended up with a really nice, good concussion. We really do need the stoplight because it’s going to keep going on, people trying to get out here at night to get home and they keep getting hit,” Cusker said.

“We’ve had one of our big five tons pulling out, another big logging truck came around the corner […] He was T-Boned. There was a lady and her kids pulling out that got hit, there’s been lots of our staff that have been injured and pulling out of here just in cars,” Doerksen added.

It’s not just cars, pedestrians are at risk too. While there is an underpass for pedestrian crossing Doerksen explained many of her employees feel uncomfortable going down there due to needles, feces, and sleeping people.

“I know a lot of the staff that work here will just jet across the highway versus having to go through that underpass. The kids that catch the city busses, they’ll get dropped off on the other side. I see kids running across the highway, I see all kinds of people,” Doerksen said.

Doerksen says she’s been trying to get the government to act for years, and for her the solution is simple: traffic control lights. She believes traffic lights would not only give pedestrians a safe way to cross, it would also prevent speeders from going well beyond the speed limit. When considering the blind spots and how dark winter nights can get, Doerksen says this is needed to prevent other accidents from happening.

The City of Prince George says the highway is a provincial highway, meaning it isn’t under the City’s jurisdiction. As for the province, CKPG reached out to the Minister of Transportation but did not hear back.