Speed

I can remember the anticipation when our highway patrol unit was issued it's first laser speed measuring device, an LTI 20/20 Marksman. Imagine! Here was a device that we could point at a single vehicle in the traffic stream and accurately measure only it's speed. It was fast enough to re-target and measure all the vehicles around it too. No one would want to use hand held radar once we were trained on this.

This video comes from New Zealand, another jurisdiction that tends to be more graphic with it's road safety advertising. Two drivers stop in freeze frame and discuss the collision that is about to happen. One apologizes for driving too fast and the other for not stopping at the stop sign. The driver that failed to stop highlights the fact that he has his son in the car. Both bow to the inevitable, re-enter their vehicles and the crash ensues.

Nadia Brownson was driving her pickup truck on First Avenue, within a 50 km/h speed zone, in Prince George on a rainy, autumn night. Scotty Bryan and Tony Shubert had been dropped off near the Dominion Street intersection and were crossing First Avenue from north to south near a nightclub. They saw Ms. Brownson approaching but thought that they had sufficient time to cross.

This is a story from Chestnut Street in Parksville, but could just as easily take place on any residential street in British Columbia. It appears that both the residents there and the City Council are upset about the speeds of the drivers who use that street. What no one seemed to agree on was what to do about it beyond asking police to do enforcement and perhaps posting the speed limit at 40 km/h.

Quoted from the YouTube video page: Our speed is one of the few things we control on the roads. While speed doesn’t always cause crashes, it always determines the severity of a crash. This is because the speed we travel at creates a force and it’s our vehicle and our bodies that absorb this force in a crash. This means the faster we choose to travel, the more severe a crash will be (whether the crash is our fault or not).

I’m a professional driver on the Island,I have been driving since the mid 60s and have logged many accident free kms. My interest in writing is the “slow down, move over law." I have done it for decades. Not enough drivers seem to be aware of it.

The signs posted on the highways are difficult to read at 120kmh the most prominent portion of them is a red and blue light on top of a sedan.

We travel Highway 5 from Hope to Kamloops two times each year. We are concerned about the increase in speed to 120 from 110. Many of the drivers go well above that limit which causes dangerous conditions. Concerned for our safety.

I have been a property owner in Mirror Lake BC for over 5 years & have yet to see any speeding related citations being created here. Hwy 31 at Mirror lake is posted 50 kmh but rarely see anyone obeying the speed limit.

The article that I wrote two weeks ago concerning solving your own road safety problems prompted an inquiry from the East Kootenays. The writer complained that a section of Highway 31A leaving the town of New Denver was marked with a 50 zone ends speed sign and the next kilometre or so of the road had many driveways, some intersections, a pedestrian crossing for a public trail and was regularly used by cyclists and pedestrians.

Argh! The driver in front of me is not doing the speed limit! Yes, I’ll admit that I often feel the this way, even when the speed differential is as low as 5 to 10 km/h. I have to tell myself to relax and follow along until there is a safe opportunity to pass by or even be satisfied with reducing my own speed to match and not worrying about it. The trouble is, that only works if you don’t have a schedule to keep and in some circumstances slow driving can be dangerous.