Paul Hergott is a personal injury lawyer that practices in Kelowna are regularly writes on road safety. One of his latest articles compares the newspaper headline “Dangerously icy roads lead to crashes” with “Deep water leads to drowning.” His position is that we need to grumble and complain about drivers who fail to use good winter tires and who overdrive the conditions. Not about the naturally occurring ice and snow.
ICBC has published the latest edition of Quick Statistics containing general information about crashes, injured and fatal victims, auto crime and vehicle and driver populations.
Quite some time ago I wrote about an initiative to trade your ticket for driver training. I was very pleased with the outcome of the one instance that I tried on my own, but the program never took off as the provincial government required the RCMP to provide it to all drivers if it was implemented. The Victoria Police Department is trying something similar through Restorative Justice Victoria.
I've written before about the three Es of road safety, education, engineering and enforcement. The enforcement component was the subject of a comment to me concerning a visible police presence on our highways. The observation was that unmarked cars and what seems like minimal enforcement creates a "I can get away with it" mindset.
The new year will bring changes to how drivers are re-examined to insure that they are safe to continue to drive. Current DriveABLE testing will be replaced by an Enhanced Road Assessment (ERA) that will be administered by ICBC at no cost. The ERA has been developed by RoadSafetyBC after surveying driver re-testing in other jurisdictions and is aimed at providing greater transparency for participants.
You don't just keep your vehicle clean so that it looks good anymore. The sensors for your vehicle's safety systems need to be kept clean so that they will function as intended as well. This video from Consumer Reports describes six sensors that your newer vehicle may be equipped with and the maintenance that they need to continue to protect you properly.
It's night and I'm driving into the gray cotton of fog caused by a lingering temperature inversion. Vision is limited, the roads are wet, it's just a few degrees above freezing and some of the traffic to my left is driving like it's a sunny afternoon in August.
This video is an explanation of the Dutch Sustainable Safety policy by Peter Furth. It is the Dutch national approach to road safety.
It’s been a busy week in B.C. for road safety related announcements by our provincial government. ICBC announced a distracted driving technology pilot project, dangerous drivers may expect to be subject to longer periods of driving prohibition, the CounterAttack program turns 40 years old and the investigation of cognitively impaired drivers will no longer include DriveABLE testing.
In my time as a driver I've seen headlight technology progress from tungsten filament glass sealed beams to quartz halogen, high intensity discharge and now LED and even laser. There is more light on the road today from the driver's point of view than there has ever been. While that can be a good thing if all that light is coming from your vehicle, it might not be so great if you are the one facing it.