A driver who survived an encounter with a notorious section of Lakeshore Road on July 10 is alive because a tree that killed two people in the last 13 months at its exact location was removed, says an area resident.
Scott Gauld has lived near the crash site on Lakeshore Road area for more than 10 years and said he has seen numerous vehicles hit the mature tree that was located just a couple of feet from the shoulder of the road.
Having seen more than one person killed on the tree over the years, he said he’s happy to know it won’t happen again.
“This kind of stops that,” he said.
“I think this is great,” he added, speaking of the young man who survived and the removal of the tree.
The driver, identified by police as a 31-year-old man, went off the road in a Toyota Corolla and struck a different tree near the spot where the hazard tree was located, and where a driver died just over a month ago on June 5 after colliding with the tree.
Less than a year earlier, a St. Catharines woman was also killed after her car left the road and hit the tree.
A reporter who attended the scene July 10 said the vehicle would likely have struck the tree if it hadn’t been removed, and that the distance to the other tree could have been what prevented more serious injuries.
The Niagara Region, which is responsible for overseeing that portion of Lakeshore Road, had the trees removed on the morning of June 19, two weeks after the June 5 collision.
Shirley Madsen has lived in the area for many years and said she believes the tree’s removal will not stop the problem, despite the good news that came out of the July 10 incident.
“I am thankful that he walked away, but it still could have been a lot worse,” she said.
“The tree did not cause the problems,” she added.
To her, the region’s decision to remove the tree was “a knee-jerk reaction.”
“They were busy being reactive and not being proactive by cutting down the tree. It is the vehicles and the people behind the wheel that caused the accidents.”
She has a long list of speculations as to why the accidents continue to occur in the area.
“Whether it be medical, carelessness, speeding, texting or looking at something, whether it was personal, falling asleep, drugs or alcohol or a circumstance out of someone’s control like an animal, to me, those are the causes.”
Gauld agrees that those causes are legitimate concerns, but feels leaving the tree standing still didn’t make sense when looking at it on a human level.
“It is 100 percent not the tree’s fault,” he said.
“The tree didn’t jump out and hit the car, the car hit the tree. There is no argument in that. I get it, trees are important too, but I wouldn’t say they are worth somebody’s life.”
He said even if it was distracted driving, the punishment for texting shouldn’t be death.
Gauld and Madsen both believe now that the tree is gone, more still needs to be done to make the section of road safer.
One of Madsen’s solutions is stop signs at the three-way intersections where Lakeshore crosses Niven and Four Mile Creek roads to slow traffic down.
Both are in favour of guardrails that will prevent cars from plowing into the dense marshy area that is still behind the now-treeless location.
The Niagara Region’s associate director of transportation planning Scott Fraser says his department is working on a comprehensive safety plan for the area.
A few interim safety measures have been taken in the meantime, he said, that include “a curb warning sign as well as hazard markers to clearly identify the area as a high-risk location.”
