Red Deer city RCMP are warning drivers to stop charging through yellow lights, a practice they say can end with irrevocable consequences.
Trying to beat a yellow light may have played a key role in three serious collisions, two of them fatal, in recent weeks, according to Cpl. Kathe DeHeer. “It’s getting to be a big problem,” said DeHeer on Monday.
RCMP say it’s become a “disturbing trend” in the last few months for drivers to accelerate to beat yellow lights.
The most recent case happened on Thursday when a eastbound driver on 28th Street allegedly tried to speed through a yellow light at the intersection on Gaetz Avenue. The red car collided with a grey car trying to make a left hand turn onto southbound Gaetz. The impact of the collision sent the red car into the path of a northbound car on Gaetz waiting at a red light. The female driver in the grey car was taken to hospital with undetermined injuries.
A 13-year-old Red Deer boy died late on July 1 after the car he was in, making a left turn onto Kerry Wood Drive, was struck by a northbound pickup truck on Taylor Drive. A number of charges, including impaired driving causing death, have been laid against the 32-year-old Red Deer driver in the July 1 incident.
A 28-year-old motorcyclist from Red Deer died on June 24 after he was heading east on 32nd Street and then collided with a truck making a left hand turn onto 47th Avenue.
The Traffic Safety Act requires that a person approaching an intersection with a yellow light, must stop before entering the marked crosswalk or intersection, unless the stopping cannot be made safely. If an intersection has rapid intermittent flashes of yellow light, a driver can head through the intersection with caution and shall yield the right-of-way to any pedestrians or other vehicles lawfully in the intersection.
Violators who don’t stop before entering crosswalk/intersection at a yellow light will be fined $115. Failure to stop at a red light nets $287.
ltester@www.reddeeradvocate.com