There were four car accidents in a 20-minute period on Eastwood Ave. on Monday night, caused by rush hour commuters ignoring sheet ice on the first snowfall of the year and racing up the hill to Danforth Ave.
Eastwood is a street that is notorious as a short cut for commuters travelling to points further east.
At around 5pm, one-by-one, cars turned north on Eastwood from Hollis Ave., gunned the gas pedal, and then failed to make it up the hill only to slide back down.
On the way down the hill they slid into parked cars and other cars that had already been in accidents.
“It’s mass chaos. Everybody sliding out of control. I’ve never seen anything like this,” said Ken Jones, an Eastwood resident. “There’s too many car accidents to count.”
Paramedics arrive on Eastwood Ave. to assist car crash victim
One of the accident victims was injured, complaining of chest pains, and was treated by paramedics who arrived on the scene along with a fire truck from the fire station at the top of Eastwood.
It’s not clear if the man was hurt during the accident or when he slipped and fell on the ice after getting out of his car.
A man driving a company car that was hit three times rushed to safety on a nearby front lawn.
“I couldn’t stay inside, it’s definitely not safe,” said the man, who asked that his name not be used.
Residents of Eastwood poured into the streets to help and tried to stop more people from coming up the hill.
Some commuters chose to ignore the warnings even though there were cars strewn all over the road and got into accidents themselves.
Other short cutters argued with Eastwood residents who begged them not to go up the hill.
The fire department has parked a truck at the top of Eastwood to prevent cars from travelling down the hill.
Individual firefighters are physically blocking the intersection of Eastwood and Hollis to prevent cars from entering the street.
There was a similar accident at Hollis and Kalmar Ave., another favourite shortcut for rush hour commuters, as well as an accident at Warden and Danforth.
Ah yes….wanna bet how many were running on all seasons?
No substitute for snow tires folks.
And this is why.
To be fair, it isn’t all shortcutting…there is massive construction/blockage going on at the Danforth and Warden intersection. You can’t always turn left on Danforth coming up Warden (unpredictable, sometimes yes sometimes no), you can’t turn south onto Warden from Danforth… that leaves Kalmar and Eastwood if you’re east of Warden and trying to get north and west.
With respect, it is most definitely shortcutting. Eastwood Avenue has had this kind of irresponsible traffic since I moved onto the street in 1996. Cars race up and down our small block at high speed every morning and every night and it’s incredibly dangerous.
I agree. It is short cutting. They don’t want to go to birchmount. Years ago our street was one of the first to be salted but now we are treated like a flat side street. Hopefully people will realize Eastwood is not a safe short cut in the winter and get in the habit of going to birchmount. I have lived here for more then 30 years and every year we witness accidents and near misses. Not only in the snow but in good weather from people speeding.
I agree with the ‘mud and snow’ tire theory. That plus these people probably weren’t local drivers. We at least know the lay of the land. I used to live at the bottom of Birchmont Road and it was a lot of fun tackling both of those hills in the winter. That was ‘if’ you could navigate along Springbank Avenue and get to Birchmount Road in the first place. Springbank was probably a ‘third class’ street back in those days. Has that changed? I now live at the top of those hills along the Cliffside bus route, so we get the ‘Cadillac’ quality of snow services.