Speed

Passing zones always presented interesting situations for traffic enforcement. There were many times when I would find one driver in the right lane travelling at or near the speed limit and another overtaking on the left at a speed significantly in excess of that limit.

Question: For a few months now I have been trying to locate specific information on the rules of the road pertaining to back alleys. Simply trying to get a concrete source on the speed limit of back lanes, especially those running along school zones, has been incredibly difficult.

Can you please tell me what would be a safe speed to set speed limiters on our delivery drivers vans owned by the company? Is there a need to set speed limiters higher in order for the driver to be able to pass?

When approaching a speed limit change along the highway as indicated by appropriate signage, where is the actual speed zone boundary? Am I expected to change my speed once the sign becomes visible to me so that I have reached the new limit by the time I reach the sign, or do I maintain my speed and then increase or reduce it only after I have reached the sign?

If you’re caught speeding, you’ll want to throw away your bag of excuses. Police have heard it all and are warning drivers excuses won’t get you out of a ticket at any time. We asked police across the province to share drivers’ top excuses for speeding:

This case decides the liability for a fatal crash at the intersection of Lougheed Highway and Nelson Street in Mission. At 5:10 am on October 10, 2016 the traffic lights at the intersection lost power and ceased to function. By 3:08 pm power had not been restored and a collision occurred that claimed the life of Barbara McNally.

A poll conducted by Research Co. last September found that more than three of five British Columbia residents agree with four different types of automated speed enforcement. Fixed speed cameras (76%), Speed on Green intersection cameras (72%), mobile speed cameras (66%) and finally point to point  speed enforcement cameras (61%) were surveyed.

Police check the radar equipment used to measure vehicle speeds to insure that it is functioning correctly before they write speeding tickets based on the readings. If a speeding ticket is disputed the officer must satisfy the court that the instrument had been tested and was working properly.

Road Guy Rob is a civil engineer who delights in explaining traffic engineering to the public. Although he is based in California, some of the information contained in his videos applies equally well here in British Columbia. In this episode he looks at a traffic calming project that went wrong. He asks the question "Have you ever seen a street get a DUI?"

Have you ever given any thought to how far you can see at night as you are driving along down the highway? High beam headlights seem to overpower the dark, but there are a lot of situations where we are limited to using just the low beams. I was required to calculate the safe speed using only low beam headlights at a seminar and I was surprised at the result.