WATCH ABOVE: A video shows at least one vehicle doing doughnuts on Highway 409 after blocking the roadway to other drivers while performing the stunts. Kamil Karamali reports.
An Ontario Provincial Police officer is speaking out about a video posted to Instagram that appears to show a major Toronto-area highway blocked off while a driver performs stunts.
Sgt. Kerry Schmidt shared a video from 6ixbuzztv’s Instagram account to Twitter on Sunday showing what he called a “dangerous and illegal” highway stunt.
In the 17-second video, a white car can be seen driving in circles with its engine revving and tires squealing as people on the side of the highway watch and film the event, with a backlog of traffic stopped behind.
This is not only dangerous and illegal, it is disapointing when a mob mentality of hijacking a highway to make a scene like this is conducted.
We are better than this…aren’t we? pic.twitter.com/NcgQjOCLtE— Sgt Kerry Schmidt (@OPP_HSD) November 4, 2019
The video pans over to a sign for Pearson Airport and Viscount Road/Airport Road exits, suggesting the location of the incident was on Highway 409 near Highway 427.
“This is not only dangerous and illegal, it is disappointing when a mob mentality of hijacking a highway to make a scene like this is conducted. We are better than this … aren’t we?” Schmidt tweeted on Sunday night.
Global News spoke to Schmidt on Monday who said police received multiple 911 calls on Saturday night and into the early hours of Sunday regarding “about 100 or more plus vehicles that were blocking Highway 409.”
Schmidt said the video seems to be consistent with what police received calls about but can’t confirm this video is exactly from that incident.
“That video is disturbing to say the least. We have high-risk driving behaviour. We have drivers hijacking the highway, taking privileges away from who we should be sharing the road with,” Schmidt said.
“In that video, obviously we see the driver doing those donuts. We see people taking pictures and videos and there’s many cars as well that are stopped in traffic,” Schmidt said, adding that police are unsure of how many of those cars were participating in the event or how many of them were just stuck in road-block traffic.
“These drivers, they want to have their ten seconds of fame. They want to showcase what they’re doing but they don’t realize the dangers they’re putting themselves in and had some car piled into the back of stopped traffic because motorists decided to stop and get out of their vehicles to start performing stunts on the highway, they would be civically liable for that activity.”
Schmidt said police are investigating and are following up on lots of tips called into police, however no arrests or charges have yet been laid.
“If we’re able to hold these people accountable, charges will be laid,” Schmidt added.
Source: Global News