By Conner Toffan

Local tow truck driver clipped while working

Jan 22, 2019 | 5:01 PM

A service call nearly ended in disaster for one local tow truck driver late Monday night.

While loading a broken down vehicle onto his truck on the number one highway, Andrew Urquhart had his arm clipped by what is believed to be a maroon SUV. The vehicle, like many others, did not slow down or change lanes as required by law. After this, the vehicle did not stop.

When passing an emergency vehicle, the law is that you have to slow down to 60 km/h or change lanes to make it safe for the people on the side of the road.

Owner of Auto Spa Towing Ltd. Kraig Kohls said that the driver took the necessary safety precautions, including wearing his safety vest. The driver also asked the customers to leave to stay safe from the traffic.

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While the tow truck driver was alright, Kohls says that he was only inches away from a result that was far worse.

“My driver is still shaken up. We’ve given him a few days off now to help recover. He didn’t sleep very well last night. So he’s at home resting just trying to shake-off some of the incident that happened right now,” said Kohls.

Kohls recalls his times as a truck driver, where he’s had a first hand experience of the vehicles that speed by.

“It’s a feeling that you wouldn’t want to wish on anybody. When you feel the power of a vehicle going by you and the actual vibration of the road and you know you’re basically in the middle of nowhere and you have no help to rely on it’s basically you against the world at that point,” said Kohls.

Kohl doesn’t believe that the drivers who speed by are properly weighing the risk of saving a few seconds versus potentially hurting someone.

“Either they just don’t care or they’re just not paying attention to what they’re doing,” said Kohls.

Staff Sergeant Sean Maxwell with the RCMP recalls being a traffic cop and seeing vehicles dangerously speed by. Tickets double when people don’t slow down or change lanes when approaching a stopped emergency vehicle. Maxwell says he has seen fines of up to one-thousand dollars.

Unfortunately ignorance of a law is not an excuse. So this sort of thing, it’s dangerous to those of us working out there on the highway. That’s police, that’s ambulance, that’s fire and that’s obviously tow truck drivers who are out there trying to help people out,” said Maxwell.

As for Kohls, he is petitioning the Albertan Government to allow them to put a blue light to add onto the lights already on the trucks. He also said they have talked to the Medicine Hat Police about ways to improve safety for their drivers.

“Be prepared Medicine Hat, I think there’s going to be some changes coming,” said Kohls, “If they’re not slowing down, they’re probably going to be getting some ‘coupons’”

 As they are also still looking for the driver, Kohls is also looking into putting more cameras into their trucks to catch future incidents like this.