CORNWALL – While more people returned to driving after lockdowns and stay at home orders in the early days of the pandemic, the number of collisions on Cornwall streets was actually down last year.
The Cornwall Police Service’s motor vehicle collision data report for 2021 shows there were 992 crashes. That’s down about 3.2 per cent from the previous year (1,025 in 2020) and the second year the number has dropped after it peaked at 1,428 in 2019.
About two-thirds of collisions last year were self-reported to the collision center, slightly higher than 2020.
The number of people injured in those collisions was also down 3.8 per cent with 251 injured last year – 10 fewer than 2020.
The majority of collisions happened on a Friday (170) in the early afternoon – 2 p.m. (100) or 3 p.m. (117). The overwhelming majority of crashes happened in good weather, clear conditions and dry pavement. Most of them were recorded in February (99).
When it came to intersections for crashes, Brookdale Avenue and Ninth Street West topped the list with 13 collisions, involving 24 people with two injured.
That was followed by Ninth Street and Sydney Street with 11 crashes and McConnell Avenue and Montreal Road with eight. Three intersections were tied with seven collisions each: Brookdale and Second, McConnell and Second and Brookdale and Thirteenth.
Two intersections that saw the most parties injured as a percentage of all people involved in a collision were Brookdale Avenue and Water Street West (55 per cent; five of nine people injured in five crashes) and Second Street East and St. Felix Street (33 per cent; 4 of 12 people injured in six crashes).
Two people were killed in traffic crashes in 2021, compared to one in 2020.
When it came to people walking, there were 18 collisions in 2020 involving pedestrians. A majority of them involved a driver failing to yield the right-of-way (seven cases) or the driver was driving properly (five cases). The intersections where cars and pedestrians tangled the most were McConnell Avenue and Montreal Road where three people were struck, followed by Cumberland Street and Ninth Street West where two were hit.
As for people fleeing the scene of a crash, there were 162 cases of drivers failing to remain in 2021.