Macai St. Lewis was driving his car home back to Airdrie on Tuesday night when a piece of a traffic delineator post was bounced into the air by another car traveling northbound on Deerfoot Trail just north of 32 Avenue North.
“I wasn’t sure what it was at first,” explained St. Lewis. “I swerved out of the way, and it collided with the right side of my car on the front side and caused a substantial amount of damage.”
The rubber base of the traffic post ended up smashing the front headlight assembly as well as a number of body panels on his 2008 Lexus ISF, one specially imported from Japan back in January. And while he does have insurance, it doesn’t cover the type of damage sustained on that night.
“So far I’ve been quoted like $5,000, last one I got was $6,500,” St. Lewis said. “The thing is because it’s a car from out of the country, you have to get parts from out of the country right? So it’s not cheap by any means.”
According to St. Lewis, the one that hit his car wasn’t the only one, videos he took at the scene after pulling over show at least half a dozen of those bases in the far left and centre lanes of Deerfoot as well as on the shoulder.
He wants the company responsible for traffic mitigation measures to pay for the damages to his car, saying the bases not being removed from the highway was a clear safety hazard.
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“The next thing you know, it’s not just someone saying, ‘Hey, I want my car to be fixed and I want to make sure you’re cleaning the roads,’” said St. Lewis.
“This could be somebody… a breaking news story for someone who got hit by a cone that wasn’t cleaned up properly and potentially dying.”
On Thursday morning, Global News went to the area where the incident took place. Traffic mitigation measures have since been fully removed as the section of Deerfoot Trail north wraps up construction.
However, several hundred metres away on Deerfoot, between 16 and 32 avenues north, another rubber base could be seen laying on the roadway.
Over the phone, the officer for Alberta minister of transportation and economic corridors Devin Dreeshen told Global News transportation company Aecon is responsible for relocating and removing traffic measures along that stretch of Deerfoot Trail.
Several attempts to contact an Aecon representative by phone were made but Global News did not hear back by deadline.
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