ORILLIA – Provincial police are concerned they are seeing a marked rise in wrong-way drivers on O.P.P. patrolled roads.
As of early November, there have been 207 wrong-way vehicle cases in Ontario compared to 182 for all of last year – an almost 14 per cent increase — and the year isn’t done.
In the last month alone, officers were called to 25 reports of people driving the wrong way. Five collisions happened in those cases and two people died. There were a dozen charges also laid, some involving alcohol.
One of those cases was in South Dundas where a teenager died when his eastbound car collided with a tractor-trailer in the westbound lanes of Highway 401 near the County Road 31 interchange.
With the “rash of incidents,” the O.P.P. released tips this week to inform drivers what to do if they encounter a wrong-way driver.