Wrong-way highway encounter alarms passenger on Route 15, near Shediac

At first, Kimberly Landry thought the headlights on the dark, snowy highway in Shediac were from an all-terrain vehicle crossing Route 15.

Landry, a passenger in a vehicle driven by her mother, soon realized the lights were from a vehicle driving the wrong way on the divided four-lane highway.

"I screamed, I said, 'Pull over now, that's a car coming toward us,'" Landry said in an interview about the incident, that happened around 7 p.m. on Dec. 21, just before the Ohio Road exit.

Her mother slowed to a stop, turned on hazard lights and watched as the white car also put on its hazard lights, while continuing past them as Landry recorded a video from the passenger seat.

It was another instance of a vehicle driving the wrong way on the highway where there have been fatal crashes involving wrong-way drivers.

"I'm not sure what's causing this or if people are doing this intentionally, but it's not a joke, especially given the recent tragedy that just happened," Landry said.

"I'm just incredibly grateful that my family and I are safe, but something needs to be done to address this issue before it leads to more devastating consequences."

Landry said they called 911 to report the driver, and after posting a video of the car on Facebook, they heard from others who also called police.

CBC News asked the RCMP about the incident but no information was provided, including whether the driver was later stopped.

Route 15 runs almost 80 kilometres, from the former Petitcodiac River causeway through Moncton, around a major traffic circle, past Dieppe northeast to Shediac, where it reduces to two lanes and ends at a traffic circle in Port Elgin.

There were two triple-fatal crashes on Route 15 in Moncton in 2024. 

The first happened around 1:30 a.m. on March 31. Codiac Regional RCMP say a car entered a large traffic circle near the Champlain Place mall headed the wrong way and crashed into an SUV. The driver and two occupants of the the car, all from the Bathurst area, died.

The second crash happened around 5:30 p.m. on Dec. 15 on the section of the highway closer to the airport, near the Harrisville/Dieppe Boulevard interchange. Codiac RCMP say a driver was headed eastbound in the westbound lanes and crashed into another vehicle. 

The driver who was going the wrong way, the driver of the vehicle she hit, and a child in that second vehicle died.