Extreme speed a factor in fatal Gardiner crash: police

By News Staff

The vehicle involved in a fatal crash on the Gardiner Expressway earlier this week may have been travelling at twice the speed limit, Toronto police sources say.

A 25-year-old woman died after she drove her BMW through a guardrail on the eastbound Gardiner Expressway near Jameson Avenue and smashed into a concrete wall around 3 a.m. on Monday.

Police sources told 680 NEWS the vehicle may have been travelling at 180 km/h or more at the time of the crash. The speed limit on the Gardiner is 90 km/h.

However, Const. Clint Stibbe would only say both the speed and the damage were extreme.

“We’re looking at a power train of the vehicle that ended up on the roadway. We have the upper and lower half of the car that were separated [and] the door skins came off the car. This kind of crash doesn’t happen at 90 km/h,” Stibbe told 680 NEWS on Wednesday.

The driver was heading east when the BMW grazed the concrete barrier on the north side and went through the metal guardrail on the south side. It then smashed into a concrete wall protecting the pump house west of Jameson, near the Palais Royale.

“It was like a grenade going off. We have debris everywhere […] without a doubt speed [was] involved in the crash,”Stibbe said on Monday.

The driver was the only person in the car. She was pronounced dead at the scene.

The crash closed the eastbound lanes of the Gardiner from Park Lawn Road to Jameson for around five hours.

 

With files from Carl Hanstke

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