THUNDER BAY – The co-founder of a Facebook group that's drawn attention to unsafe driving on Northern Ontario highways says it's accomplished its goal, and it's time to shut it down.
As of Wednesday, no new posts will be published by Highway 11/17 Kills People.
Patrick Leblanc and fellow truck driver Martin Houle – assisted later by Richard Deschamps – started the group five years ago after a friend died in a collision west of Thunder Bay.
"One night I was at home, and I received a call that he had died at the time-zone plaque near Upsala. My friend and I, we started crying . . . I said 'We need to do something. We are truck drivers. We need to bring awareness to the people and the media. We need to create a group,' " Leblanc recalled in an interview Monday.
The Facebook group has been phenomenally successful, with over 60,000 members and thousands of posts highlighting collisions and near-collisions on the two main highways through Northern Ontario.
"We achieved our main goal: warn people of the problem," Leblanc wrote in a message announcing the decision to close the group.
He said it's succeeded beyond the founders' expectations, but they can no longer handle the workload.
"We have only three or four people to manage that. It's too much. We have lives to live, and work to do. And you should see the amount of private messages that we receive," he told TBnewswatch.
In the message to group members, he added: "It takes a lot of time to manage, keep it updated and – mostly – free of spam. We asked for help in the past, and only two members showed interest. Recently, it's all about racism, shaming other members, always criticizing the ones who post on the group . . . It's maybe just 10% of the members who act like this, but it is always the same members, and took a lot of time and drain[ed] energy. Our patience reached the limit."
Leblanc and his partner have been administering the Facebook group while continuing to drive a transport truck as team drivers for 70 hours a week.
Team truck driving sees two people operating the same vehicle in shifts.
Leblanc has driven transport trucks for 26 years, including 15 years and hundreds of runs through Northern Ontario.
"We have seen so many crashes, so many people with blood on their faces. I have seen people die on the pavement in front of me . . . at the end I was fearing for my life because of all that we know about how [some] drivers get their licence and the trucking schools . . . All over Canada, there are some schools that are one of the big problems, not the only problem, but one of the big problems."
He said inadequate training and unfamiliarity with winter driving conditions on two-lane roads are just two of the issues that need to be addressed to improve safety on Highways 11 and 17.
Leblanc also feels competition among smaller companies results in them cutting their fees to get business, which in turn causes them to curtail mechanical inspections and reduce their drivers' pay.
He said he knows many drivers with up to 30 years of experience who have decided to call it quits because they worry for their own lives.
Leblanc himself is no longer driving in the North, as a recent switch to another employer now sees him taking runs to California.
But he's holding out the possibility Highway 11/17 Kills People could be restarted someday if someone steps forward to help manage it.
In the meantime, he said he and his partners appreciate the expressions of gratitude that have come their way since the announcement of the shutdown.
"We're receiving a lot of love from people. We just wanted to have a safe road. That's it."