Too many accidents, too many close calls, too many issues to ignore anymore.

The vast amount of under trained, inexperienced, and unsafe drivers manning the wheel of two-ton deathtraps is alarming.

It appears to me, as well as anyone else paying attention to what’s been transpiring on our roadways, that they are either not trained to drive in winter conditions or just don’t care about causing injury or death.

Several times a week there is an accident causing death or injury or at the very least substantial damage to multiple vehicles – and most of the time it’s on either Highway 11 north of Orillia or Highway 17 or some other two-lane highway in Ontario.

Already this week on Highway 11 in Muskoka, just north of Luigi Road, a transport struck a police vehicle as first responders and a tow truck were attending to a crash: because you know, flashing lights and a build up of vehicles is hard to see.

The officers were not in the police vehicle at the time and were not injured, however the tow truck operator was transported to hospital with unconfirmed injuries. 

They haven’t released any more details about that particular incident, but it’s safe to say the transport’s operator wasn’t operating his vehicle in a safe manner under the wintery conditions that were occurring that evening.

But, this isn’t a one-off, it’s a continuance of what’s becoming an epidemic of poor commercial vehicle driving on Ontario’s roads.

Last week while driving my son only 30 minutes south on 11 in whiteout conditions on a snow covered road, we were passed by five transports going way too fast for the conditions. Three of them nearly hit me and almost ran me off the road into the lake to the right of us (I had to swerve to avoid being killed).

One of them lost control of his trailer and it side swiped a black SUV in front of us, nearly knocking that car off the road and smashing off the driver side view mirror in the process, as well as causing a large dent.

Thankfully, the lady driving that vehicle avoid serious accident, gaining back control of her hit vehicle, and continued moving forward. We followed her for a bit to make sure she was okay before she pulled onto what we presumed was the road she lived on.

That was just one day. Myself and my wife are on the highway a lot. So are many of our family and friends. The observations are all the same. The stories are all the same.

That’s the eye test. But, more than the eye test, the police reports (and eventually statistics once they are released) tell us there is a problem on Ontario’s highways.

In Northern Ontario, there have been multiple collisions on Highway 11 already in 2025 (yes, all three weeks of this year) that have resulting in charges against several transport truck drivers who were not following practicing safety in adverse weather and poor driving conditions.

Highway 11, we’ve seen transports jackknifed across the road as well as many, many other incidents where they created slow downs, blockages, and have even caused the highway to close on multiple occasions.

According to statistics in 2024, there were over 3,000 incidents involving commercial vehicles in Ontario. That is by far tops in the country and triple the next closest province, British Columbia.

During my search for information for this piece, I found an interesting Facebook Page called Skilled Canadian Truckers that has a mission to “end the carnage” and is run by several people still in the trucking trade.

Also, check out the page Hwy 11/17 Kills People for more on bad driving – but this is about all bad drivers, bad road conditions, and other issues regarding the Northern highways.

We’re also learning from the eye test, eye witness accounts, and experienced truckers themselves that the new transport drivers – many of whom have never driven in Canadian winter conditions before – are not being properly trained before being handed the keys to the vehicles.

Yeah, that last sentence is referring to new Canadians and those here on work visas who have only driven in warm or moderate climates. That’s not an insult. It’s a fact that driving in winter conditions takes practice and is a completely different experience than driving in other seasons.

I’m not saying the drivers are bad people, though some are proving themselves to be bad drivers such as the trucker who thought cutting me off by changing lanes without looking or signaling was a good idea.

I’m saying the people who hand them these licenses without enough training, particularly enough winter driving training, are being to lax when it comes to safety.

And let’s face it, for the transport companies that are not doing their due diligence, it’s all about greed and not investing in training to save a buck. Those are the people who need to be charged along with the drivers when laws are broken.

Those are the people who care so little about our society, our people, our laws, and our families that they willingly send out these drivers who lack training, lack experience, and lack common sense to traverse our roadways.

The drivers themselves are risking their own lives, risking the lives of others, and wreaking havoc because they either don’t know or don’t care – and that all comes down to proper training, proper testing, and proper experience.

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