A 31-year-old woman was struck and killed by a vehicle in the westbound collector lanes of Highway 401 late Friday night, just moments after she exited her own vehicle following a collision.
Ontario Provincial Police say that the vehicle driven by the woman collided with another vehicle hauling a trailer in the westbound express lanes near McCowan Road sometime after 11 p.m.
They say that tow trucks arrived on scene a short time later and their operators were speaking with the involved drivers when the woman attempted to cross over into the collector lanes of the highway.
She was then struck by a westbound vehicle in the collector lanes and was pronounced dead on scene.
“We are investigating the circumstances around that crash and the reasoning behind her trying to cross the highway. Where she was going, what she was doing and what her intentions were are still part of the investigation,” Sgt. Kerry Schmidt said in a video posted to Twitter on Saturday morning. “This is something that is obviously concerning for us. People were outside dealing with the circumstances of the initial crash, which was relatively minor, and sadly now a 31-year-old woman is dead because she tried to cross the highway.”
Following the collision, police decided to shut down the westbound express lanes and the westbound collector lanes on Hwy. 401 at Markham Road but Schmidt said that several drivers blew through the closure.
He said that at least two of those drivers were stopped and charged.
“Fortunately no emergency responders were killed as a result of these dangerous and ignorant drivers that really had no sense of responsibility for what they were doing,” he said. “It could have very easily been a tragic repeat of what happened moments earlier when pedestrian was struck.”
The identity of the female victim has not been released.
Police are continuing to investigate and are urging anyone who may have witnessed the initial crash or the pedestrian being struck to come forward.
