Our condolences to the Henk & Bettina Schuurmans family, struck by a semi tractor on HWY 16 just west of Saskatoon earlier today.
A 55-year-old woman is dead after the tractor she was on collided with a semi north of Saskatoon Monday.
A spokesperson with Medavie Health Services told 650 CKOM a semi struck a tractor near the intersection of highways 16 and 305 shortly after 9 a.m.
Whether or not one agreed with their message, the outcome is a tragedy. The safety challenges of these slow moving vehicle awareness projects — be they tractors, rolling beds, or whatever — is a discussion for another day . It could as easily have been working farm equipment. Large loads and slow vehicles are common on our prairie highways — keep your wits about you.
I grew up in a farming community, and now live in an area with hundreds of small farms. Accidents happen. I feel for Henk and his family. This is sad.
A very sad and tragic accident our condolences to the Schuurmans family.
Please tell me that this isn’t another Indian Sub-Continent driver who doesn’t recognize a stop sign!
Of course it is.
May Bettina Schuurmans rest in peace and her murderer burn in hell—and the idiot who let him into Canada with him.
Incredibly sad. Condolences to the family. Sometimes, in the country, we drive as though we’re the only ones out there.
So very sad for the Schuurman family. Beyond heart-breaking.
This is just so sad. Condolences to the family. They were doing what they thought was right for them and their fellow dairy producers.
Again, how can a “professional” driver miss a slow moving cow?
Condolences to the family.
Condolences to the Schuurmans family and friends.
Ambulances around here are so covered in reflective tape, that if you are within 100 feet of them, reflections from your own headlights are blinding. Idiots still run into them regularly.
Whenever I run up on slowed/ stopped traffic, I pump my brakes to warn the car behind me. If it is really clogged, I use my hazard flashers. The screech of tires and brakes behind you is a very scary sound as you sit there stationary and helpless. The traffic behind you is often more dangerous than that in front of you.
Was it another diversity driver with no training who hit them?
The other day I had my cleaning lady drive me down the road where my husband and his father farmed and got into a discussion with her about milk farmers and how difficult it is today. Then to read this today seemed like a punch to the gut. God bless our milk producers, and God bless this family.
Within a few farms of my in-laws were a few farmers who had to cross the main railway line between Mtl and Tor. One family lost out when they were going to church. The son whose job it was to close the gate just got onto the car when they were struck by the train.and no one could understand why the father was in such a hurry. to get to church on time. Their house and barn sat empty till it fell down. Across the road from them, and also a relative, the only son of another family was killed when he drove the wagon out in front of a train during haying. The neighbours who were there helping never figured that one out either.
Accidents happen, always have and always will.
to drive a tractor and ‘wagon” down a major highway is stupid.
No, it’s not. They were doing it for the wrong reason, but the highways are made available to that kind of traffic.
there is a law called “traffic impediment” , and a fvcking tractor on a major highway is such an impediment
I drive my tractor on the road a lot, and do help friends who farm, and drive their tractors. Now STFU when your too stupid to understand the subject matter.
Speed variance is more deadly than speeding – when everybody drives fast in similar fashion (think racetrack). Good start would be to remove bicycles from the roads.
I drive on highways all the time and see tractors and farm equipment and sometimes cattle drives. It is just a fact of life.
Does their giant fake cow not a) make it impossible for them to see behind them and b) distract from the slow moving vehicle sign?
While I don’t revel in anyone’s pain this seems like a case of play stupid games win stupid prizes.
So lets have a “GUESS THE ETHNICITY OF THE TRUCK DRIVER” contest.
Don’t jump to conclusions too quickly. The truck outfit is a semi tractor with a tandem axle gravel trailer, and this suggests that it is a local driver. Not too many local Singhs driving gravel trucks around here.
There are a lot of gravel trucks hauling gravel on every highway around Saskatoon to provide gravel for all the bridge and highway overpass projects, as well as for building construction.
And, they are all in a hurry. If you have one behind you on the highway you had better be doing 110 or they will pass you. The more loads they haul, the more they earn.
The slow moving sign is visible enough and the black and white cow certainly is. I am familiar with the intersection that is by the crash scene and it is the type of intersection at which you need to have your wits about you.
Looking at the crashed tractor and the truck with a gravel trailer, my first impression is that we had a trucker in a hurry and a highly visible farm tractor that was doing 24 km per hour max.
https://saskatoon.ctvnews.ca/wife-killed-husband-injured-after-tractor-and-semi-crash-on-hwy-16-1.4005726
So horrible and sad but if you look at their dairy display, it is not well marked. The slow moving sign should have been lower between the cow’s legs. A rotating beacon and a flashing light on each corner would have been better yet.
It’s also possible the semi driver had his view obscured by traffic in front of him. There’s a lot of truck traffic on that highway.
Not seeing a slow moving vehicle traveling on the shoulder (my guess based on crash photos) isn’t the same degree of error as blowing through a stop sign on a blind intersection.
I have driven that road a few times. 110 km/hr is the posted speed limit IIRC. And if it is not, everyone is going between 110 and 120. That is a speed differential of at least 70 km/hr. That cow would look like it was stopped in front of you as you approached.
There is lots of traffic on that road and it would be very easy to get boxed in where you can’t change lanes. Your choices become plow into the cow or broadside the two or three cars beside/behind you. With a loaded gravel truck(?), either choice means someone is likely to die.
Sadly, everyone involved will second guess their decisions up that moment, for the rest of their lives.
Do not support the cause, but it is sad.
Dairy price fixing by the federal government takes a large chunk out of my food budget every month. I wish I lived closer to the US border and could make a regular dairy run across the line.