EDITORIAL: Twinning is responsible

Art Ginter is a lucky man. The Manitoba trucker last week posted a dashboard video to YouTube detailing a near head-on collision he had while travelling the Trans-Canada highway near Nipigon.

The video, depicting the sheer terror in Ginter’s voice as he crashes his truck into a guardrail attempting to avoid a tractor trailer attempting to pass an oncoming snow plow, quickly went viral after it hit the local news.

By Monday, after being picked up nationally, the video had been seen more than a million times.

It’s a chilling reminder of just how dangerous our highways can be.

It’s also as good a reason as any for the federal and provincial governments to consider speeding up the process of twinning larger chunks of the highway between Thunder Bay and Sault Ste. Marie and Kenora.

While these highways are the lifeblood of commerce in the country, there are also plenty of four-wheelers trying to get from place to place in a reasonable fashion.

While truckers and passenger car drivers need to learn to share the road, four-laning could help limit the number of close calls. How many times do the highways need to be closed in both directions, and how many drivers must die before the message is heard?

Yes, the work will be expensive.

But it’s also money well spent.