Am I Making a Difference?

My long departed Dad used to say that the measure of a man was if he left this world just a little better than he found it.

In reading your musings, I'm struck by a few things.  First a question of whether you made a difference. Second, was it worth being the sounding board for the verbal abuse. Third, could you have done it better.

Sadly the police have, sometimes by their own doing, lost a lot of respect from the general public. This is a serious problem that needs immediate correction and it has to come from the top down. But also, we have bred a society which does not believe that it has to conform to rules, regulations and civility. In my youth, and I'm sure in yours, to disrespect your elders, laws, authority figures was simply not tolerated. Today, we've told the last two or three generations that if they don't like something .... protest. Laws and courts don't matter.

I too was in a career where I sometimes had to tell people things they didn't want to hear.  Like your documents are not valid, we can't board you.  Or, the flight is oversold and we don't have a seat for you.  But most people understood when you said that the weather was bad and it was unsafe to fly. Even followed by apologies, some flew into a rage but some accepted what assistance we could offer. Guess which ones got our best efforts.

Perhaps though, your career was too long in traffic. While we can withstand abuse ... to a degree, it perhaps makes us stronger.  But it does leave some scars and I understand. This is one person who, if you had stopped me, would never have disrespected you. An apology, probably. But a respect for you and your duty to do your job, of course. However, if you were incorrect in what you thought were the facts, I would have respectfully asked you to hear me out.

But the career is behind you now, as is mine. Yes, I'm sure that you did make that little better difference. I hope I did too.     

In my 50+ year driving career I have had one speeding ticket (1986), and one warning about 6 months ago on the Malahat.

In each case, the officer was more than courteous, and I fully realized that stopping me was appropriate.

In each case, the officer had the effect of making me think, and the outcome… being more aware of my driving habits and changing my behaviour…. was very positive.

So, just a word of appreciation for the traffic officers out there, and for your continued efforts.

First, your phrase “change a driver’s attitude” is a hyperlink.  Click on it to make sure the website linked is what you intended.

Second, can an average traffic cop change a driver’s attitude?  Don’t know about changing attitude but the halo zone shows that drivers’ behaviours can be changed for s short period of time.  Can drivers’ behaviours be changed for the better for an extended period of time?  Sure, data on seat belt wearing confirms that.

Third, with regard to the education component of Road Safety Strategy 2025, traffic officers could have a major influence on improving road safety.  As the article below shows, their potential effect is seriously limited.

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Why similar collisions reoccur                                                               

In Spring 2009, we attended the aftermath of a two vehicle collision at a signalized intersection in Red Deer.  We talked to the two drivers, witnesses, the attending police officer, some EMS personnel at the scene, as well as a more senior traffic officer a few days later.

The near head-on collision wrecked both vehicles beyond repair.  The air bags in the newer vehicle had activated.  The older vehicle did not have air bags.

Thankfully, all three occupants had been wearing their seat belts; as a result, none of them required medical treatment. Two of the occupants were in their late teens or early twenties; the other driver was in late middle age.

Highlights of our conversations with the two police officers are bulleted below:

·        We asked if similar collisions were common or rare.

Common was the response.

·        We asked if similar collisions occur only at the current location or occur elsewhere.

Occur at every intersection was the response.

·        We asked what will happen to the collision reports that the drivers were filling out at that time.

The collision reports will be checked for completeness and for discrepancies in the description of the collision.  The officer will use the information in the collision reports, along with comments from any witnesses, together with the position of the two vehicles, their direction prior to collision, and the degree and location of damage, to determine which driver was at fault and what charges would be laid.  The collision report will be forwarded to Alberta Transportation.  The City of Red Deer Traffic Department will obtain a copy of the non-identifying information in the collision reports.

·        We noted that two of the city high schools were located nearby, that one of the drivers was of late high school or early college age, and that many of the students at the high school frequently drive through the intersection.  Considering the proximity of the schools, the age of the driver, and the frequency of the type of collision that had occurred, we asked whether the police service shares relevant information about such collisions with the students so that they might know how to avoid similar crashes in the future.

The response was no, that is not done.

·        We noted that there were several driving schools in Red Deer and asked if the information was shared with driving instructors so that they might alert their students about the errors that led to the crash and inform them of techniques for avoiding similar outcomes.

The answer, once again, was no, that is not done. 

Over the last thirty years, the people at many major industrial worksites in Alberta made several changes in their safety practices to reduce the frequency and severity of lost time injuries in the workplace.  One of the changes was to ensure, that when something did go wrong, that the event would be examined to determine what modifications were required to avoid repeats.  This included communicating the essence of the cause and consequences of the occurrence to all relevant site workers.

The effectiveness of those changes at work is confirmed by the subsequent reduction in lost time injury rates, often to less than ten percent of historical values.

It was with that industrial mindset that I began looking at traffic safety many years ago.  It seemed very strange to learn that traffic officers would collect collision reports that described what went wrong, why it went wrong, how serious the consequences of the errors in judgment by drivers were, and then place the information in files that the public could not access.

A cynic could superficially look at the process and conclude that traffic officers must be hiding the information that the public needs because continued collisions, somehow, are in the best interests of the police service. 

While it is true that much of what we need to know to improve traffic safety is hidden in inaccessible files, it’s not because that is the choice of traffic officers.  There are too many horrific aspects to traffic law enforcement – from being physically at risk when apprehending a driver who disregards his or her personal safety and that of the general public, through having to view and describe dismembered bodies at collision scenes, to being the person who first faces family members with tragic news – for such to be the case.

Traffic officers do the grim aspects of their work because that is an unavoidable aspect of achieving their goal of serving and protecting us – sometimes from ourselves, sometimes from others.

I have no doubt that traffic law enforcement officers would like us to know enough about the driving errors that we make, and about strategies for avoiding those errors, so that everyone arrives safely at their destination, every time.

The reason why they don’t tell us is not because they don’t want to.

It’s because we won’t let them.

And so the same collision keeps happening again and again and again.

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Let me know if you would like to know which driver did what wrong.

Such a situation would not be tolerated on major worksites in Alberta.  If a harm incident at work occurred, everyone else at that location who could be in a similar situation would be informed as soon as possible of the wrong actions and their consequences, as well as the correct actions to take to avoid repeats.

The dragons Den group do have morals. A B. C. ( current or retired ), was on their show to get funding to produce a license plate holder that would block the last letter/number of the plate so that cameras would be unable to record the whole plate. Therefore, no ticket. Jim, the Mr. Lube and Boston Pizza owner, ripped into him about the unethical aspect of being a law enforcement member promoting this behaviour.