Niagara roads become skating rinks

The winds and snow combination led to horrific driving conditions throughout most of Southern Ontario Thursday. A 48-year old Oakville man died when his vehicle spun out of control on Highway 403 at the 410 in Mississauga. His name has not been released.

Meanwhile, police in Niagara are describing the roads in their region as mayhem. They’re being flooded with calls and highways in the area have been considered dangerous for much of the day. The roads through the Niagara Peninsula were icy and snow-covered. There were so many crashes between Fort Erie and Cambridge, the OPP were getting a collision call every two minutes.

One of the most serious crashes. A 15 vehicle pileup on the QEW near Beamsville, that included a transport truck. The OPP had to close the Toronto bound lanes between the 406 and Ontario Street to clean up the mess.

Ralph Newsham is with Parkway Towing: “The roads are very icy. Cars are in the ditch all over the place”

The highway was an ice rink. Even firefighters were sliding. Further down in Jordan, another tractor trailer slid off the road. These cars were smashed up near Vineland. Minutes later, another crash in the same place. Muchen Zhang tried to stop and slammed into the back of this minivan: “It seems like everywhere is black ice. You just can’t control your vehicle.”

The minivan driver, James Brody says he was shocked because he was only going 60 kilometres an hour: “I had looked behind me and I saw the person behind had four way flashers on too. Somehow he got in between us and hit me.”

You can barely see through the white out conditions, but the driver of this car was rushed to hospital after another car slammed into his door. And if a passenger had been sitting in this seat, they would have been seriously injured, or even killed.

One of the iciest spots was the QEW in Grimsby. There were cars in ditches. Dozens and dozens of crashes.

The OPP were doing a great job of clearing the highway. Here at the Gateway in Grimsby there are six cars in the parking lot all up on tow trucks.

It looked like a collision reporting centre. At Casablanca alone, there were three separate jack knifed tractor trailers.

Ralph says: “Slow down, take it easy and stay home.”

There were times today that QEW Niagara looked like one of those bumper car rides. There were cube vans going sideways down the highway, cars spinning around and bouncing off the jersey barrier. It was really dangerous out there and people should just slow down.