Newmarket resident Eugene Kim experienced a shocking sight as he made a morning drive to Costco April 21.
As he stopped at the Yonge Street and Green Lane Avenue intersection, a large fibre cable spool rolled in front of his vehicle. Video from Kim’s dash-cam shows it nearly hitting a vehicle waiting at the red light, but the driver was able to pull forward to dodge it.
Although the video does not catch how the spool fell off a passing truck, Kim said the outcome could have been much worse.
“It could have been a very different story,” he said. “I was just amazed at the level of negligence for something that large.”
In the video Kim posted on social media, he suggests a telecommunications company installing cables throughout Newmarket in recent months is likely responsible for the near accident.
However, TelMax marketing vice-president Meg Shephard said the spool was not one of theirs and they do not use ones as big as the one in the video.
The video shows a worker and two other men struggling to push the spool onto a median before the light turned green.
“If that hit a car, it could have been a completely different story. We were quite shocked, it was very scary,” he said.
The Ministry of Transportation said the matter would not be under its jurisdiction to investigate, as it occurred on a municipal road.
York Regional Police corporate communications Sgt. Clint Whitney said there weren't any calls for the incident, but said the Highway Traffic Act prohibits people from operating a motor vehicle unless the load is properly secured "so that no portion of it may become dislodged or fall."
No authorities have reached out to Kim about the video, he said. He added that he is glad to see the incident has received coverage in the media.
“It is a case of negligence,” he said. “If nothing had been done or seen about it, that driver could have gotten away with something that could have potentially been catastrophic. I'm not wanting to get somebody in trouble, per se, but that’s a pretty serious incident.”
