A Whistler’s man’s celebratory Canada Day mood soured quickly after he was stopped for impaired driving and then led police on a foot chase.
In a release, Whistler RCMP said they observed an erratic driver at about 7:50 p.m. July 1 on Highway 99 near Meadow Lane. While police attempted to stop the vehicle, the driver reportedly made several quick turns before ending up in the Alpine Café parking lot on Mckeevers Place.
The driver, a 34-year-old local, immediately exited the car and “fled into the community,” police said. Officers followed the man on foot before catching up with him in a wooded area nearby. Police said the man actively resisted arrest and several additional officers were brought in to provide assistance.
After being taken into custody, the man was issued a 90-day driving suspension and his vehicle was impounded for 30 days. He also now faces possible charges of obstruction of a police officer and was handed several violation tickets for driving without a valid licence and vehicle insurance, police said.
RCMP is asking anyone who may have witnessed the incidents or made a recording of it to contact the detachment at 604-932-3044.
Ontario motorcyclist airlifted to hospital following collision near Function
An Ontario motorcyclist was taken to a Lower Mainland hospital on Saturday, July 4 after colliding with another vehicle near Function Junction, one of three serious motorcycle crashes that took place on Highway 99 this past weekend.
Whistler police said the accident occurred in the 800 block of Highway 99, south of Function, in the early afternoon. Investigators have learned that three motorcycles were headed north “at a high rate of speed” when the first two motorcycles passed another northbound vehicle. A third motorcyclist was unable to manoeuvre around the vehicle, striking it from behind.
The collision launched the driver, a 23-year-old Ontario man, into the southbound lanes before he came to a stop along a road barrier. He was airlifted to hospital with what police said were non-life-threatening injuries.
Anyone with information on the accident is asked to contact the Whistler RCMP at 604-932-3044, or Sea to Sky Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477.
The crash was the second of three serious collisions on Highway 99 involving motorcycles this weekend.
On July 3, a 31-year-old Vancouver man was killed after he lost control of his bike negotiating a corner approximately 10 kilometres north of the In-SHUCK-ch Forest Service Road, sliding into the oncoming lanes before being struck by a southbound vehicle.
Another fatal crash occurred late morning on July 5 when up to three northbound motorcyclists collided with a southbound vehicle roughly nine km north of Joffree Lakes Provincial Park.
A motorcyclist from the Lower Mainland was declared dead at the scene. Two other motorcyclists and two individuals in the southbound vehicle were taken to hospital with what police said appear to be minor injuries, while a motorcycle passenger was airlifted to a Lower Mainland hospital with serious injuries that are not believed to be life-threatening.
The flurry of accidents has prompted an urging from Whistler RCMP Staff Sgt. Paul Hayes—who is also an avid motorcyclist—to drive to the changing conditions of the scenic roadway.
“I think the maintenance people are doing as good a job as can be expected, but there is some responsibility on the drivers to understand where they’re going,” he said. “They should understand the roads they’re going to be exposed to and the expectation that the roadways, especially on mountainous, treed and relatively unused portions of roadway, will have some sort of debris and what precautions a driver should take as a result of that.”
