It was less than a year ago that we reported a serious crash at the bottom of Vancouver's Cambie Street after a utility pole in seemingly the worst place split an Audi in half without killing anyone — the latest accident in the same spot where more than a dozen cars have crashed since the early '90s.
Therefore it wasn't a surprise when I woke up this morning to find an email from the man whose family owns the lawn where so many cars have ended up saying "it happened again."
Eerily, it was an another Audi sedan split the same way around another pole. The only difference this time is that one of the passengers didn't survive.
Speed was likely a factor in the crash of the Audi A6, which sent the 26-year-old driver to the hospital and claimed the life of his 26-year-old female passenger according to reports.
Douglas H., whose family owns the house where so much carnage has taken place, says it was an awful scene.
"It was a pretty gruesome in that you can see the tarp the cops used to cover the victim and her blood on the pavement," he said an email. "[The] Driver's lone shoe laying in the middle of the road, too."
Dramatic fatal crashes are so sadly common that we rarely report on them here, but this particular street seems to need some attention. According to Douglas, in the last 20 years they've lost three fire hydrants, multiple poles, and had various vehicles end up in their front lawn.
"[It] Makes me wonder why this city doesn't impose some speed reducing measures around this bend or safer lamp posts that aren't build like solid oaks," he said. "There were several other accidents since last year's including an SUV that rolled over but this one was the most striking in that it was another Audi and someone had to lose their life due to excessive speed."
Images from Google Street View appear to show the accidents are occurring at the end of a large curve on Cambie Street. The intersection is downhill in two directions, meaning someone coming at a high rate of speed in the wrong direction could lose control off camber and roll or flip.
Assuming there's a proper speed limit in place, it seems like both a speed-limiting solution and some kind of protective barrier would help. At reasonable speeds there's no obvious reason why someone would crash.