DriveSmartBC

Have you ever wondered about the instruments that the police use to measure vehicle speeds on our highways? My favourite tool was LIDAR because it gave me the ability to accurately measure the speeds of individual vehicles. Although the laser must be used from a stationary position, either hand held or on a tripod, being able to target a specific vehicle made it superior to RADAR on a busy highway.

The case of Gylytiuk v Krause arose from a collision between a car and a motorcycle being driven on Enterprise Way in Kelowna. Brian Gylytiuk was riding his motorcycle behind a car driven by Julia Krause east of the intersection with Dilworth Drive. A U-Turn performed by Ms. Krause caused the collision.

Real-World Use of Automated Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) and Their Consequences is a research report from the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute that examines how a group of 50 drivers used the ADAS systems in their personal vehicles over a 12 month period. The study found that 47 of 235 safety critical events which occurred during that timespan involved ADAS use.

A number of readers contacted me after I told a story about a man walking behind me when I was preparing to back out of a parking stall. These readers all advised me that I should back into parking stalls rather than driving forward into them. The benefits of doing this outweigh the convenience of entering the stall nose first in all cases but one.

Every year in Canada, drivers kill 16 child pedestrians and 5 child cyclists. They also injure 1,300 and 700 respectively. Sadly most of these incidents are preventable and we can do things to make it safer for children to walk or ride a bicycle in our community.

Whoosh! Here comes a car overtaking my police vehicle at 144 km/h in the posted 110 km/h zone. It's dark at 11:30 pm and at that speed, any animal or object on the road won't be identified in time and a collision is almost sure to occur.

British Columbia's Traffic Fine Revenue Sharing program transfers the net revenue from traffic tickets back to local governments as a source of additional funds to support community safety and address local policing priorities. Transfer grant amounts are based on an area’s policing costs relative to the total policing costs paid.

One of the drawbacks of living on Vancouver Island is having to drive at night in the rain. Where there is no street lighting present I find it like driving into a wet sack of coal. When the road markings are worn I must slow down in order to be safe because it is difficult to maintain proper lane position.

One of my preferred enforcement practices was to use an unmarked car and drive in the right hand lane at or just under the speed limit. This gave me plenty of time to look at and into whatever passed by on my left. Tinted windows, failing to wear a seatbelt, distracted driving and other things of interest to a traffic cop were often easily discovered.