A recent article in the Wellington Advertiser shared new collision data obtained from the Ontario Ministry of Transportation (MTO) through a Freedom of Information request.
According to the article, 84 collisions were recorded at the Highway 6 / Wellington Road 22 / 8th Line ("Cox Creek") intersection over the past decade, including 20 collisions in the most recent year alone.
The breakdown reported was:
2016–June 2021: 25 collisions
- 9 non-fatal injury collisions
- 16 “property damage” collisions
June 2021–Dec 2025: 52 collisions
- 22 non-fatal injury collisions
- 30 “property damage only” collisions
However, many residents are aware of the well-documented fatal collision on December 29, 2023, when a 40-year-old new father lost his life at this intersection.
Seeing these two statements side by side naturally raises an important question:
Why does the official data say there have been no fatalities since 2016?
What the data may not show
Collision datasets depend on how incidents are classified and recorded at the time of the report.
For example, crashes may not appear in an “intersection” dataset if they occur:
- slightly outside the mapped intersection boundary, or
- on a highway segment approaching the intersection.
Injury statistics can also be influenced by how reports are completed. If police or paramedics are not present at the scene, injuries may not always be recorded in the initial collision report — particularly when symptoms develop later.
For this reason, the number of reported injury collisions should be understood as a minimum count based on initial reports, not necessarily the full number of people who were hurt.
Understanding how collision data is categorized helps ensure the community and decision-makers are looking at the same picture of risk.
Why this matters
Every number in that dataset represents real people, real families, and lives forever changed.
Lives have been lost here.
Many others have been injured.
Safety improvements are needed NOW — not after the next tragedy.
If you believe this intersection deserves urgent attention, please continue sharing this petition so more people — and decision-makers — understand what is happening here.
The more voices calling for action, the harder it becomes to ignore.