Car occupants lucky to survive crash: BPS

Occupants of a four-door Toyota that was involved in a collision with a flatbed semi on Tuesday afternoon are lucky to be alive, according to an official with the Brandon Police Service.

Brandon police responded to a 911 call at 3:42 p.m. on Tuesday that reported a semi and car collision.

The car, a four-door Toyota Camry that was travelling east on Richmond Avenue, collided with a flat-bed semi-truck hauling farm implements that was travelling south on Highway 110.

BPS Sgt. Dana McCallum said the semi failed to stop at the intersection stop sign.

All five people who were in the Camry, including the driver and passengers, were transported to the Brandon Regional Health Centre in stable condition.

“They were all released,” McCallum told the Sun. “It’s amazing. It’s a miracle. It would have been very scary for those occupants.”

After reviewing the dash-cam footage from the semi-truck and taking statements from witnesses, McCallum says charges are pending.

The Tuesday-afternoon collision has once again thrown the Highway 110 and Richmond Avenue East intersection into the headlines as a danger for area motorists.

In 2021, the provincial government announced it was planning a safety review of the intersection, since Highway 110 is a provincial highway. On Wednesday, the Brandon Sun reached out to the province for an update on that review.

A provincial spokesperson said a road safety review had been “recently completed,” and that following its completion the Transportation and Infrastructure department is currently undertaking a safety improvement project at the intersection.

“This project began in winter 2024 and is anticipated to be completed by fall 2025,” the spokesperson said in an emailed statement. “Work on this project includes the installation of traffic signals in order to improve safety at this intersection.”

The Highway 110 and Richmond Avenue East intersection has been deemed a danger by the City of Brandon, based on past collisions in recent years, with at least one of them involving a fatality.

On Oct. 18, 2021, one person was killed in a three-vehicle collision between a semi-truck, a vehicle and a pickup truck at the same intersection. The driver of the car had a stop sign on Highway 110 but didn’t stop.

There is no stop sign for vehicles travelling through the intersection along Richmond Avenue.

Following that deadly collision, the city called for the province to improve rumble strips along Highway 110, improve the advance warning of stop conditions on the highway and post speed reductions approaching the intersection that would reduce the speed on the highway from 100 km/h to 80 km/h and from 90 km/h to 70 km/h.

In 2014, a collision between two semi-trucks at the intersection sent one driver to hospital and resulted in the spilling of more than 10,000 of litres of diesel fuel on the roadway.

In 2021, the Sun reported that Manitoba Public Insurance recorded multiple collisions in the area of the intersection nearly every year since 2014, including collisions with wildlife and domestic animals.

Collisions have continued to be a problem. On March 18 of this year, McCallum said that two separate collisions took place at that corner — both of them minor accidents — at 6 a.m. and 7 a.m. that morning.

“It needs to be addressed. There’s no question about it. And we’ve talked to them about it a number of times,” said Brandon Mayor Jeff Fawcett on Wednesday. “What I want is a safer intersection.”

Mayor Fawcett said he has a meeting with Transportation and Infrastructure Minister Lisa Naylor next week, where the topic of the Highway 110 and Richmond Avenue East intersection will likely come up, along with other traffic concerns at Braecrest Drive and 18th Street.

Fawcett says the provincial government is aware of the need for solutions for both of these traffic issues in Brandon, and he expects the province will be moving forward with changes there shortly.

In its updated multi-year infrastructure investment strategy released last December, the province announced that it would spend an estimated $10.5 million for an intersection improvement project at the Highway 110 and Richmond Avenue East intersection. The renewal project was listed under its forward-looking 2025-2029 projects list.

That list also included $7 million for intersection improvements at Braecrest Drive and Highway 10 (18th Street).

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