Miscellaneous

Who would have thought that among the most cost effective ways to improve road safety was to invest in public transit? Public transit can be 10 times safer to use than driving your own vehicle, so a modest increase in transit ridership can have disproportionally larger road safety benefits. A report by the American Public Transportation Association titled Public Transit's Safety Benefits explains.

QUESTION: A used car dealer here in Nanaimo has an advertising gimmick. It involves displaying a large dumpster with two or three wrecked cars standing on end sticking out of the top. Presumably it is one of those "push, pull, or drag" any car in for a generous trade-in allowance.

Starting September 1, 2016 the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure has authorized a pilot project to allow golf carts to operate on certain approved local roads in the Town of Qualicum Beach and the Village of Chase. Expected to last up to two years, the project will assess the use of golf carts as an alternative transportation method on low volume, low speed roads. The initiative is aimed at people who are interested in using vehicles other than automobiles to make local, short trips.

The question this week revolves around vehicle noise in quiet neighbourhoods. Why don’t the municipalities do more about it asks my correspondent. This may be a case of the squeaky wheel not getting the grease!

Everyone would like to feel safe in their neighbourhood and that extends to having everyone else obey the driving rules when they are in it. So, what do you do when this is not the case? The answer depends on how much you want to become involved in the solution.

It appears that sometimes you don't get what you pay for. A class action lawsuit in the US against Osram Sylvania over the advertised claims for their Silver Star headlight bulbs was successful. The suit alleged that Sylvania represented that the headlights are brighter, provide a wider beam and allow drivers to see farther down the road than standard halogen headlights.

I never know what I will find when I check the DriveSmartBC e-mail in-box. Today’s gem came from someone who identifies themself as Grumpy and suggested that they were thinking that maybe I could use the web site to contain a database such that when a bad driver is witnessed, the public could enter the details of the driving offence. No personal information need be provided.

I would like to tackle a subject that might be a bit odd for DriveSmartBC but the consequences could be related back to safety. I’m thinking about travel speed and fuel economy because the faster you go, the more it costs, probably in more ways than one. Slow down and save.

Question: Last week I received my first ticket in 41 years of driving. I had recently started driving taxi part time in Nanaimo. At the end of a 9 hour shift I dropped the taxi off and got into my own car. Five minutes later I went through a school zone without slowing down, having missed the school zone sign.

I sat in court to see what it is like in traffic court as I have never been to one before. I noticed that on many occasions, the officer would take the defendants outside of the courtroom to speak to them about their plea to the court.