We are becoming more and more aware that our streets have been designed for motor vehicles and they are not prepared to accommodate cycle and pedestrian traffic safely. If we approach municipal authorities, their engineers point to the TAC Geometric Design Guide for Canadian Roads and refuse to budge from what it contains.
Requesting disclosure from the issuing officer should be one of your first steps in preparing to dispute a traffic ticket.
Major changes to the way auto insurance in BC functions took place without fanfare on May 1. According to a summary outlining the key changes on the Borden Ladner Gervais LLP web site, you will no longer be able to take legal action for most motor vehicle collision claims.
Trailer brakes are often neglected by drivers. I once checked three trailers on a Friday evening and found one that was too heavy for a surge brake, one that had no brakes functioning and a third that needed brakes but was not equipped with them.
This video about distracted driving was broadcast by 60 Minutes Australia in 2013. Fast forward 8 years and look around you when you drive. Do you think that the message is getting through?
According to the BC Cycling Coalition on average, four cyclists are injured in a collision with a motor vehicle each day in BC. The group is attempting to convince government that a minimum 1.5m passing distance should be made into law to help stop these collisions.
I had an interesting conversation with a driver at the roadside one morning. I had stopped him for driving at 107 km/h in the posted 80 km/h zone entering a high collision area on Highway 4 east of Port Alberni. Speed is a particular problem as a primary contributor to collisions there.
"Why are you writing me a ticket for this? I wasn't driving dangerously." was his response to my request for his documents.
A citizen contacted police to report a hit and run collision in the 2700 block of Franklin Street of Vancouver. A black vehicle had struck a parked car and left the scene. Patrols located a black Honda Accord, BC licence BG3-10K, parked nearby that had sustained collision damage but did not show obvious signs of having been stolen.
According to John Sullivan, a RAF pilot, we are the result of hundreds of thousands of years of evolution. Our eyes, and the way that our brain processes the images that they receive, are very well suited to creeping up on unsuspecting antelopes and spotting threats such as sabre-toothed tigers. These threats are largely gone and they’ve been replaced by vehicles travelling towards us at high speeds. This, we’ve not yet adapted to deal with.
These photos were taken of a collision between CN locomotive 5461 and a parked car in North Vancouver at Barrow Street and Harbour Avenue. The driver of the car had chosen to parallel park too close to the track and was struck by the train as it passed.