(Update)

If you were driving in west Hamilton or on the 403 Thursday, you were barely moving. The traffic was a nightmare. There were a number of crashes in the area; one of them fatal, after a man lost control of his motorcycle.

Cindy Csordas has the details.

To say the 403 was a disaster may be an understatement. There was a transport truck fire in Burlington on the QEW at the 403 split; a car rolled over on the 403 at Highway 6 North but the crash we’ll begin with first is the one that killed a Hamilton man instantly.

Whether you were east or westbound on the 403 in Hamilton traffic was jammed up and even though road blocks were put up to protect a fatal crash scene, one man didn’t care.

Sgt. Dave Woodford, OPP: “We had a vehicle drive through the barrier almost striking the officer and the officer had to collide with that vehicle to stop him before he came into the scene. We had messages right away that someone went through the barrier.”

The Ontario Provincial Police don’t believe fog played a part in this crash. A motorcyclist was killed on the 403 west of Aberdeen at around 7:30 Thursday morning. Police say a middle aged man from Hamilton lost control of his Yamaha. The motorcycle skidded over to the shoulder but the driver was left lying in the live lane where a transport truck ran over him.

There was another crash not far from the first one. This time, eastbound on the 403 near Highway 6 North. A transport truck and a Chevy Aveo collided sending the Chevy rolling several times in to the ditch. The female passenger was removed immediately with serious injuries. After fire officials cut off the roof of the car, the male driver was extricated from the wreck and transported to hospital with life threatening injuries.

Woodford: “The secondary crashes – we see them a lot when we have the highways closed down because people become very impatient – they have to take secondary routes then when they get moving again, they suddenly speed up to make up time.”

No one was injured in the transport truck fire near Burlington on the QEW and the 403.

Police haven’t released the name of the man who died in the motorcycle crash but apparently he was married to one of the jurors selected for the Brandon Musgrave murder trial. The murder trial has been postponed.