Driverless runaway snowmobile travelled 12 kilometres down Trans-Canada Highway

Police say it’s quite fortunate no one was hurt by a runaway snowmobile on the Trans-Canada Highway on Monday afternoon. The purple Arctic Cat Puma was sent hurtling down the highway all on its own after the throttle got stuck and its operator lost control as he attempted to cross the highway near St. Jude’s just west of Deer Lake.

The out-of-control machine bounced its way off the snowbanks, crossing the highway along the way, for around 12 kilometres. About 10 kilometres into its perilous, westward journey, a member of the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary police force in Corner Brook tried to stop the snowmobile with an unmarked car, but the stubborn machine bounced off it and kept on going.



The snowmobile finally stopped near Pasadena after it hit a snowbank, became airborne and landed on its bonnet. “The snowbanks are high and very hard all the way along, and it just keep falling back down toward the road and continuing along,” said Cpl. Dean Hyde of the Deer Lake detachment of the RCMP.

Hyde, who called the freak incident one-in-a-million, estimated the machine’s speed to have been at around 50 or 60 kilometres per hour. “I’m shocked no one ran into it,” he said. Hyde did not expect the investigation into the incident to require much further work. He said there would be no need to inspect the machine’s mechanics.

With video.