Coquihalla Wrong-Way Crash Kills Surrey Man; Police Seek Witnesses, Probe Impaired Driving

For twenty terrible minutes on Saturday morning, the Coquihalla Highway turned into a trap. Around 8:30, drivers heading north on Highway 5 near Merritt started calling police about a pickup truck barrelling toward them — in the wrong lanes, going the wrong way. Officers were already rolling to intercept it when the call they dread came in: a head-on collision just south of the Helmer exit.

A black Toyota Tacoma, driven the wrong way up the northbound lanes, had slammed into a white Toyota RAV4. A 24-year-old Surrey man riding in the RAV4 died at the scene. Three other Surrey men, aged 24 to 38, were rushed to hospital with serious injuries. The Tacoma's driver — a 22-year-old from Coldwater, the only person in the truck — walked away with minor injuries and was detained on suspicion of impaired driving.

Speed and impairment are both suspected factors, B.C. Highway Patrol says. And now investigators have a question they can't answer on their own: what was the driver doing before he ever got on the highway?

The wrong-way drive nobody can explain yet

"We need more video and witnesses who can tell us what the driver of the black Toyota Tacoma was doing before he started driving," Sgt. Michael McLaughlin of the B.C. Highway Patrol said in the police release. Some witnesses say the Tacoma entered Highway 5 near Lac Le Jeune, on the stretch between Kamloops and Merritt. That's the thread investigators are pulling.

Think about the sequence: multiple drivers spotted the truck going south in the northbound lanes and called it in. Police were dispatched to intercept. While en route, the crash happened. The window between the first warning and the impact was brutally short — not enough time to close the highway, not enough time to warn the four men in the RAV4.

Police are asking anyone who saw the Tacoma's driving before the crash — or anyone with dashcam footage from that stretch of Highway 5 on Saturday morning — to call the B.C. Highway Patrol detachment in Kamloops at 250-828-3111, quoting file 2026-2997.

A highway with a brutal reputation

The Coquihalla doesn't need an introduction to anyone who's driven it. Opened in 1986 for Expo, the 186-kilometre freeway between Hope and Kamloops climbs through the Cascades with a 120 km/h speed limit, sudden whiteouts, and long downhill grades that punish inattention. According to ICBC, the highway saw 32 fatal crashes between 2004 and 2013, with an estimated 400 to 500 accidents every winter season. Global News has listed the stretch between Merritt and Hope as one of the deadliest highways in B.C.

It's famous enough to star in its own television show — Highway Thru Hell, the docuseries about the tow operators who work the Coq, has been running for years on that exact reputation. The show exists because this road chews up bad decisions and spits them out.

Saturday's crash was a different kind of bad decision, if impairment is confirmed. A wrong-way driver on a divided 120 km/h freeway is one of the most lethal things that can happen on any road — the closing speed between two vehicles is effectively doubled, and reaction time collapses to almost nothing.

Four young men, one devastating morning

The human math of this crash is grim. Four men from Surrey, aged 24 to 38, were travelling together in the RAV4. One is dead. Three are in hospital with serious injuries. BC Emergency Health Services said Saturday that three patients were transported in critical condition — two of them by air ambulance — and one in stable condition.

The northbound lanes between Exit 290 at the Highway 5A interchange and Exit 315 at Helmer Road were closed for hours while investigators documented the scene; the highway reopened in both directions around 4 p.m. Saturday.

The 22-year-old Tacoma driver from Coldwater remains the focus of the investigation. He was detained for suspected impaired driving at the scene. No charges have been publicly announced — and with the investigation in its evidence-gathering phase, police are deliberately building the file witness by witness.

That evidence gap is the story now. The crash itself took seconds. The question of how a pickup ended up driving the wrong way down one of Canada's busiest freeways on a Saturday morning — and whether impairment, confusion, or something else put it there — will take weeks to answer. If you were on that road between Lac Le Jeune and the Helmer exit on October 17, your dashcam might hold a piece of it.

Editor's note: no verified video from a reputable outlet was available for this story at publication time.

Sources

• CTV News, "What was driver doing before fatal B.C. crash? Police seek witnesses while investigating suspected impairment" — via NewsBeep summary, October 20, 2026 — Sgt. McLaughlin quotes, witness appeal, file number.
• CBC News, "4 people sent to hospital after Coquihalla crash near Merritt, B.C." — October 20, 2026 — casualty and impairment details.
• CityNews Vancouver, "Surrey man killed in crash near Merritt; driver of other vehicle suspected impaired" — via EuropeSays summary, October 19, 2026 — victim ages, Tacoma driver details.
• Fraser Valley Today (FVN), "BCHP Want Witnesses to Fatal Head On Crash Near Merritt on Coquihalla, Impaired Concerns" — fraservalleynewsnetwork.com, October 19, 2026 — crash timeline, Lac Le Jeune detail.
• Postmedia, "Surrey man dead after wrong-way head-on crash on Coquihalla Highway" — thebullpost.press, October 19, 2026 — Oct 17 8:30 a.m. timeline, BCHP release.
• NewsBeep, "UPDATE: Coquihalla reopens after head-on collision north of Merritt" — newsbeep.com, October 18, 2026 — highway closure/reopening, BCEHS response details.

Photo: Wintry conditions on the Coquihalla Highway, British Columbia. Ruth Hartnup, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.