It was a head-on collision that killed a London woman and her daughter that inspired the latest push for safety improvements along a stretch of Highway 401 through Southwestern Ontario.

Now, days before that push hits the floor of the Ontario legislature, a new twist — one that a key organizer of the campaign says has only strengthened her resolve.

Police on Friday said they’ve charged a 53-year-old driver with multiple offences, including two counts of impaired driving causing death, in the median crossover crash near Dutton that killed Sarah Payne, 42, and her five-year-old daughter, Freya, and injured her six-year-old son.

An area legislator helping in the campaign to get median barriers installed along the 401 west of London, was left shaking his head, as the charges were announced one month after the collision.

The crash has revived an old issue in the region, where some stretches of the busy highway have median barriers but others still do not.

“Why does it take tragic deaths before something is done?” said Progressive Conservative MPP Rick Nicholls, whose riding takes in the 401’s London-to-Tilbury section — the focus of the safety campaign.

“I believe that median barriers would definitely prevent any crossover deaths,” said the Chatham-Kent-Essex MPP.

Within hours of the Aug. 29 crash, a London woman began an online petition on Change.com, demanding the installation of median ­barriers along all of Ontario’s 400-series highways.

That petition has since grown to about 3,500 names.

Three weeks after the crash, a friend of Payne’s in Chatham, Alysson Storey, began an old-fashioned paper petition, which Nicholls will present at Queen’s Park on Wednesday.

Storey said more than 2,000 people have signed the petition, which she expects will swell to 3,000 by the time it reaches the legislature Wednesday, together with a rally by supporters she plans at Queen’s Park.

“We’ve had responses and signatures from Ottawa all the way to Windsor,” Storey said.

“It’s really been incredible. People have been circulating (it) across the province. It’s absolutely resonating.”

Storey has rented a bus to take supporters from Chatham-Kent and Windsor to Queen’s Park. About 40 are expected. Toronto-area friends and family of the two crash victims are expected to join.

The OPP said a Cambridge man faces two counts of impaired driving causing death in the Aug. 29 crash, two of dangerous operation of a motor vehicle causing death, impaired driving causing bodily harm, dangerous operation of a motor vehicle causing bodily harm and possession of cannabis resin.

Hearing about the charges only made Storey more determined to push for the barriers.

“This news is reinforcing that a barrier is more important than ever,” she said. “It’s made my resolve even stronger that this needs to be done.”

Elgin OPP Const. Adam Crewdson said investigators spent the last month going over crash reconstruction reports, gathering evidence and consulting the Crown Attorney before laying charges.

“There’s many different layers with it,” he said.

Payne was an occupational therapist at Parkwood Institute in London, working in the outpatient spinal cord injury program. Her husband, Dr. Michael Payne, also works at Parkwood, where he’s medical director of the Regional Amputee Rehabilitation Program and runs the Regional Orthotics Clinic.

The grieving family has requested privacy, police said.

Calls to improve highway safety along the 401 west of London have been heard since the 1999 highway disaster in Lakeshore, near Windsor, in which eight people were killed and 45 injured in an 87-vehicle pileup when thick fog enveloped the road the Friday morning of the Labour Day weekend.

Median barriers were installed on the 401 between Windsor and Tilbury between 2005 and 2009, but Nicholls has said the stretch east from Tilbury to London is long overdue for widening and barriers.

The Transportation Ministry has said plans to rebuild the 401 in Chatham-Kent include installing a high-tension cable barrier in the grass median from the beginning of the 401’s four-lane section in Tilbury, east to the Victoria Road interchange in Chatham-Kent.

Construction is expected to begin next year and finish in 2020.

The ministry also said it’s looking at including median barriers in future contracts as 401 reconstruction work moves east through Elgin County.

Hubert Domonchuk, of Cambridge, charged in the Aug. 29 crash, is to appear in court in St. Thomas on Nov. 14.

dcarruthers@postmedia.com

jbieman@postmedia.com