by Jennifer Pritchett
Northern News Services

NNSL (Apr 02/97) - A city truck driver and another from Alberta died Wednesday in a head-on transport truck collision near Enterprise, about 445 kilometres south-west of Yellowknife.

Cory Bradbury, 23, who was living in Yellowknife, and James Abe Dyck, 27, of High Level, Alta., were killed instantly when their transport trucks collided on Hwy. 1, about 40 kilometres north of Enterprise.

Bradbury was travelling south in a truck owned by Robinson Transport Ltd., hauling two empty tanker-trailers, when he hit the oncoming truck.

A truck driver for more than five years, Bradbury had been working off and on for RTL for the past two years.

Marvin Robinson, president of the company, said it's the first driver fatality the company has had since coming to Yellowknife in 1968.

Although police have yet complete their investigation into the fatal smash-up and have reached no conclusions about the cause, Robinson blames the accident on a lack of road maintenance.

"My worry isn't the professional people we put in these trucks, it's the traffic we're meeting," he said. "We need to ensure that the budget is there to get the roads looked after."

Robinson said the responsibility lies politicians who make the decisions to allocate the money for road maintenance.

The Department of Transportation would not comment on Robinson's concerns, Thursday.

Bradbury's body is being shipped back to Bay Roberts, Nfld., where his family lives. His funeral is expected to be held in the next couple of days.