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Loved ones are mourning a 65-year-old motorcyclist whose death in a crash was the first of five deadly collisions that have killed six people on motorcycles across the London region over the past month alone.
Steve Skelton of Dorchester was killed in a June 13 collision with a passenger vehicle at the rural Oxford County intersection of Road 96 and 37th Line, about 10 kilometres southwest of Tavistock. His sister remembered him as an experienced, cautious rider who’d logged about 300,000 kilometres on motorcycles over five decades.
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“He was a very experienced and knowledgeable and cautious driver, and this still happened,” Susan Skelton said, adding her brother was a grandfather to two girls.
More than 200 people attended a celebration of life, she added. Steve Skelton’s obituary made clear his passion for riding, stating he died “doing what he loved.”
Oxford OPP spokesperson Const. Randi Crawford on Monday said the investigation was ongoing.
But the deadly crash is one of five across Southwestern Ontario roads in the past month that have killed six people, a startling local rate that’s in line with a provincewide uptick. The others include:
- On July 13, it was about 6 p.m. when police say a 30-year-old London man was killed when his motorcycle collided with a passenger vehicle at Prospect Hill Road and Plover Mills Road in a rural swath of Thames Centre, northwest of Thorndale.
- Also on July 13, at about 1:30 p.m. a 74-year-old on a motorcycle was killed in a collision on Bluewater Highway, north of Goderich along the Lake Huron coastline.
- On June 23, a motorcycle left the roadway and struck a tree at about 2:45 a.m. in the area of Longwoods Road and Sassafras Road, about halfway between London and Chatham. Police said no other vehicles were involved.
- On June 15, two days after Skelton’s death, two people were killed when the motorcycle they were riding was involved in a crash along Egremont Drive near Strathroy. The crash happened just after 1 p.m. at the rural intersection of Egremont and Old School Road. A 46-year-old woman from Adelaide Metcalfe is charged under the Highway Traffic Act with two counts of careless driving causing death, police.
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The raft of fatal local crashes underscores what has already become the deadliest year for motorcycle crashes on OPP-patrolled roads in five years.
There were 16 people killed on motorcycles in Ontario in both 2020 and 2021, followed by 20 in 2022 and 19 in 2023, according to OPP statistics. Already this year, 22 people have died in motorcycle crashes in Ontario.
Wayne Daub is general manager of the Motorcyclists Convention of Canada – a not-for-profit advocacy group that promotes motorcycling interests such as advancing public policy and improving traffic safety. The uptick in deadly crashes this year is no surprise to him.
“I’m seeing this all over the place as I’m moving around,” said Daub, who lives in Forest, a town about an hour west of London.
He offered advice to riders – get proper training to become a good defensive driver and refresh the training often – and also to other drivers.
“You have to be aware as a driver of a car that motorcyclists . . . are considered a vulnerable road user,” he said. “They’re the same as a bicycle or a pedestrian on the road.”
bwilliams@postmedia.com
@BrianWatLFPress
The Local Journalism Initiative is funded by the Government of Canada
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