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Highway to hell

This week another life was lost on the Sea to Sky Highway - the second motorcyclist to be killed on the highway since January, and the accident involved three bikers, three separate vehicles and an eight-hour closure of the highway.

This week another life was lost on the Sea to Sky Highway - the second motorcyclist to be killed on the highway since January, and the accident involved three bikers, three separate vehicles and an eight-hour closure of the highway.

But it wasn't road safety, sadness for the unfortunate dead and their family, or complaints about bikers driving too fast, which has seemingly galvanized the community this week.

No, more people were concerned with the inconvenient eight-hour road closure than they were with anything else.

Local police received numerous calls, as did The Chief, along with a few letters decrying the nuisance and loss of money caused by the traffic jam.

It is difficult to find fault with these people, as being stuck on the highway for more than eight hours on a beautiful sunny day, can cause anyone to become slightly infuriated.

There were a few mitigating factors, which made the closure even worse. Namely, the fact that it was one of the nicest Saturdays in recent memory, meaning there were more people on the road at that time, traveling to and from Whistler and Vancouver.

This made it problematic for police accident experts and analysts to reach the scene quickly to record and investigate the crash. It was a vicious circle. Traffic couldn't move until these guys got there, but they too, were stuck in the traffic.

Understandably, residents and commuters are blaming police and Traffic Services for the unbearably long delay Saturday. But that is hardly fair. Several local RCMP members on courses in Vancouver that day were also among those stuck on the highway for eight hours.

Anyone who knows the highway, also knows that Saturday was not the typical response to fatal accidents. We have fatalities on the highway every few weeks, it seems, and the highway is rarely closed for longer than an hour in those cases.

So while it was indeed an utter mess, and unbearably long for commuters to wait without food, water and toilets, I think their responses have been somewhat selfish.

Nobody was forced to wait. They could have turned around and gone home, or to a restaurant, or somewhere to wait out the closure. Nobody was forced to wait the eight hours.

The truly reprehensible people in all this, are those who callously continued on their way after the accident, weaving around debris and a dead body in the road. You couldn't stop to see if you could help? Was your destination as important as someone's life? I doubt it.

I feel for those who were inconvenienced, but when compared to the death of someone, the inconvenience doesn't seem as bad.

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