As we move into the holiday season, most of us do our best when we get behind the wheel. We slow down, stay alert, and look out for one another. We hope everyone else does too.
But on Highway 14, doing your best is not always a guarantee you’ll get home on time, safely, or even at all.
We’ve spent some time trying to answer a simple question: how often was Highway 14 closed in 2025, and why?
There is no single, central public source that lists all closures, so the summary below is based on publicly reported police notices, municipal advisories, and local media.
First and foremost, our sincere sympathies go to the families who lost loved ones in the two fatal crashes on this stretch of Highway 14 this year, and to everyone who was injured or affected by the many serious, non-fatal, incidents.
What follows is a snapshot of 2025 closures, followed by an article shared today by the Town of Sooke (reposted with permission), which adds important context about how long these safety concerns have been building, and how little has changed.
Confirmed full closures in 2025
- Jan 2: Fatal two-vehicle collision
- Jan 15: Serious head-on crash
- Mar 14: Motor-vehicle incident (Langford advisory)
- Apr 24: Multi-vehicle crash, full closure
- Aug 3: Fatal head-on collision
- Minimum documented full closures in 2025: 5
- (Short-duration, partial-lane, construction, or unreported closures are not included.)
The following Reposted with permission from the Town of Sooke Facebook Page:
🔹 Metchosin span of Highway 14 is accident-prone, but no improvements on horizon 🔹 Monday December 8, 2025
Motorists were stuck in Sooke Road traffic yet again Saturday morning, after a passenger vehicle lost control and rolled onto its side along a portion of Highway 14 in Metchosin near the eastbound start of the Metchosin–Langford four lanes. There were no serious injuries.
The notorious stretch of highway east of Kangaroo Road has been a repeated source of crashes, rollovers, and ditch-hits in recent years as traffic along Sooke Road has become more congested.
ICBC data shows 61 crashes occurred between 2020 and 2024 along just the Metchosin stretch of Sooke Road. Twenty of those involved injuries.
Despite the regularity of collisions on this section of highway, there are no official plans for upgrades or road widening. Meanwhile, the population of Sooke continues to grow at one of the fastest rates in BC, with increasing numbers of residents and visitors travelling the Highway 14 corridor.
While no work is planned for the Metchosin span, Sooke residents have been anticipating upgrades further west on Highway 14, starting with a controlled Idlemore Road intersection in Saseenos and improvements to manage Saseenos Elementary traffic. Right-turn lanes between Phillips Road and Church Road for westbound traffic are also on the horizon.
The Idlemore project was set to begin this fall but has been pushed into 2026. Next year is also anticipated as the year construction will begin on turn lanes in Sooke’s town centre, although no formal start date has been publicly released.