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Seven motorcyclists have died on roads in the wider London region in the last two months alone, a troubling trend Ontario Provincial Police say reflects a deadly toll provincewide.
The most recent death on local Ontario Provincial Police-patrolled roads happened Aug. 1 around 8:15 a.m. when a motorcycle collided with a pickup truck at the intersection of Highway 59 and Substation Road, about 10 kilometres south of Woodstock. A 33-year-old motorcyclist from Port Rowan died at hospital, police said.
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Oxford OPP Const. Randi Crawford said on Tuesday there weren’t any updates related to that crash, but police were cautioning motorists that many of the collisions could have been avoided.
“That’s definitely a message we’re trying to get out there to people, is that these (crashes) are happening at intersections, and they totally can be avoidable,” Crawford said.
It’s not just the London region seeing an increase in fatal motorcycle crashes this year. The provincewide numbers are startling:
- As of mid-July, there had been 22 fatal motorcycle crashes across Ontario this year
- Now, not quite one month later, there have been 34 – an increase of more than 50 per cent in mere weeks
- At this same point last year, there had been 23 deaths in motorcyclists provincewide, per OPP figures.
In OPP West territory, a region that includes London and much of Southwestern Ontario, there have been 10 deadly motorcycle crashes so far this year. At this time in 2023, there had only been one in this area.
Crawford said there isn’t a primary reason for the increase in deaths this year, but police are trying to get the message out for motorists to “just slow down.”
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This year is shaping up to be one of the deadliest years for Ontario motorcycle riders in the last five years.
In 2020, 42 people riding motorcycles were killed, followed by 35 in 2021, 44 in 2022 and 39 in 2023, according to the OPP.
“At the end of the day, no matter who’s at fault, the chance of being seriously injured or fatally injured is a greater risk because (motorcycles) are so much smaller” than passenger vehicles, Crawford said.
DEADLY LONDON-AREA MOTORCYCLE CRASHES, 2024
- On Aug. 1, a 33-year-old motorcyclist from Port Rowan was killed in an 8:15 a.m. collision between a motorcycle and a pickup truck at the intersection of Highway 59 and Substation Road, about 10 kilometres south of Woodstock.
- On July 13, a 30-year-old London man was killed when his motorcycle collided with a passenger vehicle at Prospect Hill Road and Plover Mills Road northwest of Thorndale at about 6 p.m.
- Also on July 13, at about 1:30 p.m. a 74-year-old on a motorcycle was killed in a collision on Bluewater Highway, north of Goderich along the Lake Huron coastline.
- On June 23, a motorcycle left the roadway and struck a tree at about 2:45 a.m. in the area of Longwoods Road and Sassafras Road, about halfway between London and Chatham. Police said no other vehicles were involved.
- On June 15, two people were killed when the motorcycle they were riding was involved in a crash around 1 p.m. at the intersection of Egremont Drive and Old School Road near Strathroy. A 46-year-old woman from Adelaide Metcalfe is charged under the Highway Traffic Act with two counts of careless driving causing death, police say.
- On June 13, Steve Skelton of Dorchester was killed in a collision with a passenger vehicle at the rural Oxford County intersection of Road 96 and 37th Line, about 10 kilometres southwest of Tavistock.
bwilliams@postmedia.com
@BrianWatLFPress
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