Bad roads hit home

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Published: May 28, 1998

Brenda Bod cradled her left arm, tears in her eyes, as she spoke to reporters at the Saskatchewan legislature.

Lifting the sleeve of her T-shirt she revealed an upper arm covered in a dark purple, painful-looking bruise.

Bod is lucky. She turned away as the 4.5-kilogram chunk of Highway 47 came crashing through her windshield.

Bod, of Macoun in southeastern Saskatchewan, was driving south on the highway May 22 when she met an oncoming semi. She said both vehicles were traveling well below the speed limit because of the deteriorating road.

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The semi kicked up a piece of asphalt that hit the hood of her car, crashed through the windshield, bent the steering wheel and hit her.

“I saw it coming,” she said. “I kind of laid over on my side. Had I not, I would have been hit (in the head).”

“A few inches the other way and we would be speaking about a fatality today,” said Saskatchewan Party MLA Bob Bjornerud, who raised Bod’s accident in the legislature May 25 as he called for more money to fix highways.

Highways minister Judy Bradley was to meet with Bod later that afternoon.

“If it’s the fault of the road system … there is compensation,” Bradley said.

If an investigation finds road conditions weren’t to blame, Bod will have to pay a $700 deductible under the province’s no-fault insurance system.

About the author

Karen Briere

Karen Briere

Karen Briere grew up in Canora, Sask. where her family had a grain and cattle operation. She has a degree in journalism from the University of Regina and has spent more than 30 years covering agriculture from the Western Producer’s Regina bureau.

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