Since the building of Costco and the surrounding box stores there are numerous unnecessary traffic crashes at Langford/Millstream Exit 14 occurring through no fault of the driving public.
The statistics of the injuries, cost of the accidents, fines issued, call outs by the RCMP, Langford Fire Department, hazmat trucks and ambulance will be also be of interest to the motoring public.
The accidents occur entirely due to the positioning of an advance green traffic light for vehicles turning left off of the Exit 14 Millstream overpass to travel back into Victoria and when they do there and daily near misses and frequent accidents.
That reason for these accidents is singular. There is an advance left turn green arrow light is centered directly above the second lane and makes it clear that both the inside and the adjacent lane can turn left off of the overpass which as mentioned can not be done without causing an accident or near miss.
The road surface in this lane has a contradictory white arrows declaring that vehicles may not turn left, but due to the high volume of cars coming from the Millstream Village area, the painted arrows on the road are almost never visible due to the bumper to bumper traffic.
Or like this morning when the road was covered in frost and there were again so near misses.
The confusion is further compounded by the fact that there are two left turn lanes with advance green light indicators at the McCallum Road intersection for traffic going into toward Costco.
So drivers turning left toward Costco after coming off the highway at Exit 14 find there are two lanes turning left indicated by advanced green lights in their lane. When they are leaving Costco and travelling in the reverse direction they logically assume that there would be two left turn lanes for coming off the overpass and onto the highway.
One does not have to wait long on any given day to witness a near miss complete with the screech of brakes and the blare of horns.
Clearly, as mentioned these accidents are caused by the failure of those charged with transport and public safety to eliminate the confusion caused by the position of the lights.
I suspect you will get considerable response from your readership in reference to this letter — from those who have been experienced the frequent delays due to accidents and from those that have been in accidents or near misses.
Stuart Cummings
Langford