Halifax crews will be taking a hard look at a busy part of downtown Dartmouth after a traffic accident Monday night that could have been much worse.
Shortly after 11 p.m. on Monday, an SUV going the wrong way down a one-way part of Victoria Road slammed into another vehicle before hitting a hydro pole near the intersection with Queen Street.
Neither driver was seriously hurt, but the crash knocked out power to more than 1,600 hydro customers and resulted in a ticket for the SUV’s driver.
For the other driver, it meant a night in the emergency room — and a day fraught with worry for her mother.
"I almost lost my daughter and the mother of my three grandchildren last night,” said Faye McLean, whose daughter, 45-year-old Dejah Colter, was driving the car that was struck.
Relieved the outcome wasn’t worse, she says what she wants now is to ensure tragedy doesn’t strike another family on Victoria Road.
Ironically, the family had been an expecting an accident to take place there, she said.
“It's easy to understand how it happens,” said Devin McLean, Faye’s grandson and Colter’s son.
“There's no ‘do not enter’ signs. There's nothing on Victoria coming down this that indicates anything of the nature of being in the wrong,” he said.
With the lack of signage, the family says, it may be hard for drivers to realize that stretch of Victoria Road is a one-way street until it’s too late.
Jennifer Stairs, a spokesperson for the city, says city crews will be visiting the intersection of Victoria Road and Queen Street very soon.
"And if the signs that are there are faded, we will certainly replace those as soon as possible,” she said.
Faye says she thinks it’s a shame it took a collision to spur change at what she sees as a problem intersection, but hopes speaking out will make things safer for drivers in the future.
Devin, however, takes a different view about getting the lack of signage fixed.
"If it doesn't get up today or tomorrow, I'll make my own and put it up,” he said with a laugh.
With files from CTV Atlantic’s Bruce Frisko
