An Ottawa farmer says he’s lucky to be alive after the tractor he was driving was struck from behind by a transport truck in the city’s rural south end in June.
The crash happened just after 4:30 a.m. on June 23 on Mitch Owens Road between Anderson and 9th Line roads.
“I realized he wasn’t signalling to move over and he wasn’t slowing down,” said Craig Waddell, a sixth-generation farmer.
“It was kind of last-minute realizing, ‘Oh man, like he is going to hit me,’ and there’s nothing I can do about that so, I just brace for impact.”
Waddell was on his way to milk cows at his family’s Ivandale Farm, less than a kilometre away from where he picked up the tractor that was pulling an implement, a tool used to perform tasks like planting, tilling or harvesting.
“The implement came into the ditch on this side where the grass is all chewed up and the transport landed over on the other side and my tractor, with its tire and axle sheared off, kept skidding across the road and landed in the ditch further up,” Waddell explained at the scene last week.
Despite injuries to his back and head, Waddell was able to get out and call 911 himself.
Ottawa police confirm the driver of the truck, a man in his 30s, has been charged with careless driving under the Highway Traffic Act.
Calls for increased road safety
The speed limit on that stretch of Mitch Owens is 80 km/h, but Waddell says drivers often go faster than that.
He says high speeds and dangerous passes contribute to close calls that happen nearly every day.
“It’s frustrating because we work really hard to put food on the table for Canadians at a reasonable price, and when they make it more dangerous for us to do our jobs, it’s hard to do these things well,” he said.
The family has installed cameras on farm equipment, and has captured recent close calls, including a van narrowly missing an oncoming vehicle as it passed a tractor and a car trying to beat a left-turning tractor by swerving around it.
“Slow-moving vehicle” signs have been installed in the area within the last week, and the area councillor says she’s committed to finding solutions in an area with high truck, agriculture and commuter traffic.
“That could mean dedicated lanes in areas where there’s a lot of agriculture or agricultural corridors,” said Osgoode Coun. Isabelle Skalski, who has met with Waddell and his family.
“What you see in construction zones where you have enforcement, that fines are doubled if specific type of conflicts occur, and this could be an angle that we could explore.”
Waddell says he’s all for changes that make things safer.
“We’re trying to do our best to make it to our destination safely, just like you. So, if they can just give us a little more time and space, that would be terrific,” he said.
He says he’s doing as well as he can be.
“Still trying to figure out what it’s going to look like for us long term,” he added, “but doing very well considering that I got hit by a transport truck from behind at 90 km/h.”
