According to Winnipeg police, the incidence of serious and deadly collisions in the city has significantly increased in 2022.
This year, Winnipeg has already had 30 serious collisions and 21 fatalities, a considerable rise from 2021, when nine people lost their lives there.
Staff Sgt. Rob Hutter of the Winnipeg Police Service Traffic Unit told Global News that the year had been “alarmingly high.”
And it’s worrying because you want the general population to be able to utilise the roads safely, which is something that anyone would want to prevent when these situations occur.
Ten of the year’s 21 fatalities have included pedestrians, and three have involved drivers who fled the scene, including the recent hit-and-run at Portage Avenue and Berry Street that claimed the life of a 24-year-old woman.
In December 2014, a pedestrian hit and run near Inkster Boulevard and McGregor Street resulted in the death of Cody Joss, Kevin Joss’s son. In that incident, the motorist has still not been apprehended or recognised.
According to Joss, witnessing the most recent deadly crashes in the city makes the pain worsen.
“It’s a nightmare that we live every day and it affects you every day when you hear of others that are losing their lives,” Joss told Global News Thursday.
Every time you hear on the news that someone else has died, it brings you back to day one.
Joss aims to increase public awareness of the value of driving carefully with others and unresolved hit-and-run incidents.
It’s annoying because it’s unnecessary, he said. Accidents can occur, but many of them might have been avoided by altering your own behaviour. Regardless of whether you’re a pedestrian or a driver.
”
In order to encourage others to exercise caution when operating a motor vehicle, Joss says he wants to share his message and heartbreaking personal experience.
You have a straightforward decision to make, Joss stated. You have a licence to operate a vehicle that weighs between 2,000 and 5,000 pounds, sometimes much more, and is a killing machine. You must maintain control of it.
In 2021, six pedestrians died in vehicle crashes in Winnipeg, including two cases where drivers failed to remain on scene.
Families will never get over that, according to Karen Wiebe, executive director of the Manitoba Organization for Victim Assistance (MOVA).
“Families are left in a very tough situation when a life is lost that should not have been lost, and nobody accepts responsibility for that,” Wiebe added.
“Families face enormous challenges. And in some cases, they’re almost insurmountable.
” MOVA primarily supports families of the victims of homicide, but Wiebe says the impacts of an unsolved hit and run are equally as devastating.
“I’ve given you a permission to kill,” Wiebe recalled his driving instructor saying to him fifty years prior.
And when you consider the force of a vehicle’s contact on a human body that is so delicate, the consequence is never going to be something that can be overlooked and is typically never fully recovered from.
2022 will be “an alarmingly high year” for fatal crashes, according to Winnipeg police
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