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(KIM ANDERSON / iNFOnews.ca)

Clearwater resident Christa Thomas has been commuting on the Yellowhead Highway north of Kamloops for 13 years and has noticed the route has become more treacherous in recent years.

"It used to be a really nice drive. As the years go on, it's becoming less enjoyable because I'm worried about what people are doing," she said.

The danger came close to home last spring when her son was rear-ended while parked on the side of the highway.

He and a friend were trading driver duties around 3 a.m. when a semi truck hit them.

The friend managed to get out of the mangled car, but Thomas' son had to be extricated by emergency crews.

He is now, months later, just beginning to return to work. 

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Since then she's been tracking each collision she can find on Highway 5. By her count, there were 49 collisions on the route last year, and 15 were fatal.

Most recently, four people died in two collisions on the same day.

One person died in a single-car collision near Rayleigh on the morning of Dec. 28, but the cause isn't known.

Three people and a dog died in another that morning. They were passing a semi truck and, as the passing lane ended, their Toyota Corolla collided with a Ford Sprinter van.

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Clearwater mayor Merlin Blackwell said they were residents of Valemont, a village of around 1,000 people.

"When you're talking about the whole valley... you lose four people in a day and you lose 15 or more in a year, those number by population are insane," he said.

He and other area politicians like Barriere mayor Ward Stamer have been advocating for a stronger response to the dangers of Highway 5.

"Everybody knows somebody who's been seriously injured or killed on the highway," Blackwell said of North Thompson residents. "That's the big impact on small towns is we know these people."

Blackwell said the route became more dangerous when the speed limit was increased from 90 km/h to 100 km/h. There are also more commercial trucks on the route than in years past, with very few passing lanes.

He's calling for an increase of commercial truck and police enforcement on the route to crackdown on speeders, but he realizes that's only a short term solution.

Blackwell said the route needs more passing lanes, of which there are just three between Kamloops and Clearwater, adding that he'd like to see the route widened to two lanes of traffic in each direction where possible.

The province has been cracking down on highway traffic, particularly on commercial drivers in recent months, but hasn't included the North Thompson region. Instead, Blackwell said, the government enforcement is focused on overpass collisions in the Lower Mainland and that may be overshadowing the death toll on the Yellowhead, Blackwell said.

"If you had four deaths on Highway 1 between Surrey and Abbotsford the same day there would be a public outcry, there would be an inquiry," he said.

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