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Global TV has released startling news about traffic accidents and fatalities in the Lower Mainland.
On Monday, Global News led with a story that dozens of new, digital cameras will be installed to catch drivers running red lights in BC. The planned numbers are as follows:
- Kelowna – 5
- Richmond – 8
- Burnaby – 11
- Surrey – 29
- Vancouver – 47
Global illustrated this story with horrific shots of traffic accident scenes where people had been “severely injured or killed”. They noted that these kinds of cameras will reduce horrific traffic accidents by 5%! That means that 95% of these horrific traffic accidents will still happen. Red light runners will get a $167 fine. That’ll stop them! Don’t know about you, but this news doesn’t exactly make me want to run out and trade in my bike for a car.
There may also be a lot more traffic cops on the streets soon. This is good news for law-abiding drivers – but it’s just more bad news for the other 90% of motorists! In case you think I’m exaggerating, Global noted that when speed traps are put up, MOST drivers are found to be going at least 20 km over the limit. Isn’t that reassuring for cyclists sharing streets with them? No wonder there are so many traffic accidents.
Global fired off an avalanche of chilling statistics:
“The most dangerous place in the province for you to be may be your own car. Over a 4 year period (2004 – 2008) there was an average of 270,000 (that’s more than a quarter million) crashes per year on BC roads. 76,000 people were hurt, and 515 killed. There are more deaths every year on Lower Mainland roads than people killed in homicides, including gang-related deaths in all of BC.”
Does this mean I should encourage my teenagers to join a gang rather than buy them cars, because they’d be safer? Mmm. Although now that I stop to think about it, owning a car seems to be a prerequisite for belonging to a gang. I do not think this because I’ve applied to join a gang, and been declined on the basis of my bike habit. It’s just that I’ve noticed that local gangsters are always getting shot in their cars, or else shooting people from their cars. I have yet to read of a gang member being shot by a peloton of gangsters cycling past, or of a gang member being shot while on his morning bike commute. Darn. There goes that option for my kids.
In any event, just in case the stats did not encourage you to put your car on Craigslist, Global clinched the argument with a discussion about traffic fatalities (a euphemism for people killed in horrible ways in traffic accidents). They spoke to Solicitor General Rich Coleman about his experiences when he was a Mountie. Looking haunted, Coleman stated that he “saw some pretty nasty fatalities … you don’t forget those things.” Cut to shots of up-side-down smashed-up cars, with what appeared to be covered-up bodies next to them.
Finally, Global tried to make the argument for more traffic cops in BC by highlighting how much worse the stats for traffic accidents are in the Lower Mainland than in other provinces:
“More people die on Lower Mainland roads than in Canada’s two biggest cities. The Lower Mainland District averages between 120 and 125 road fatalities per year. Metro Toronto, in comparison, with a population of about 3 million averages 45 to 49 road fatalities a year. And Montreal with just 2.8 million people averages fewer than 70.”
I applaud Global TV for shining a spotlight on the dark under-belly of our global car obsession.
I think this kind of focus on traffic accidents, injuries and deaths could do more to persuade people to stay out of cars than years of preaching about the environment.
The 20 over the limit rule seems to apply for my ride to work along W 16th Ave. 70 in the 50 km/hr part, and 90 in the 70 km/hr part. Luckily the 70 km/hr part has a wide bike lane, and no intersections to worry about for most of the way. When people at work get traffic tickets along this stretch, others will console them as if they were victims.
I’m presently reading Traffic: Why we Drive the Way We Do, hoping to gain some insight into this behaviour.
That sounds like a good book to pick up – Traffic: Why we Drive the Way we Do. I am intrigued by the way people change into monsters when they are in cars. We would never scream abuse at someone who got in our way in a supermarket – but people do that all the time when they are in cars. It’s bizarre, and depressing as all hell to watch.
I really enjoyed Traffic: Why We Drive The Way We Do. It’s got some interesting thoughts on how we have a level of perceived risk that we are comfortable with and how each safety innovation that has come along has caused us to drive in a riskier fashion to maintain that level. Airbags, ABS brakes, wide streets all lead to faster driving with smaller following distances. This behaviour ends up negating the safety improvement and leaving no difference in the number of deaths.
I just ordered in used on Amazon (just a couple of dollars) … looking forward to reading it.
Thanks for the cnmmeots, Bob and Mark.Bob you’re picking up on some of my residual bias. Truth be told, there was a time when I felt 100% confident that I couldn’t enjoy cycling if I wasn’t doing it competitively. The only bikes I owned were race bikes, and the only way I wanted to ride was fast. My view started to change about seven or eight years ago, and it’s still evolving. Personal and professional responsibilities required me to cut back on my racing and training volume, so I began to look to bike commuting to get my fix . At that time, non-competitive riding was a sort of consolation prize for me. However, I discovered how enjoyable, fulfilling, and convenient it can be to use a bike for transportation and recreation. I also learned that I didn’t have to be in a particular heart rate zone to have fun. Without a doubt, my most enjoyable rides in recent years have been those that did not require an entry fee. I agree that the bike racer archetype can discourage average people from getting on bikes. It makes it difficult for non-cyclists to see a bike as anything but a toy or a piece of exercise equipment. That’s a shame, because cycling is so much more than a competitive sport, and there are so many people who would really enjoy and benefit from riding a bike. The Bike Fed’s mission is to inspire, motivate and unite a strong community of civic, business and political leaders, motorists and bicyclists to move bicycling forward. A key part of that mission is for cyclists of all kinds to be united. My future posts on this blog will probably connect more with the enthusiast segment of the cycling community, simply because that’s where I come from and what I’m most familiar with. Please understand, though, that my intent is to encourage all cyclists (and people who aren’t yet cyclists) to enjoy riding a bike. Some of my posts may inspire people to try a race for the first time, and others may inspire racers to commute or to enjoy other non-competitive types of riding. In all cases, I’ll be careful to write in a way that does not imply or encourage any sort of judgment or division among cyclists.Denny
Given the statistics we are being shown, doesn’t it also make sense for drivers AND pedestrians to wear helmets? When I listened to these reports I shuddered and thanked my lucky stars that I can use the separated bike lanes for 90% of my trip to and from work – please, keep these drivers away from me!
There are a lot of people who seriously advise people in cars should wear helmets. Based on the stats, they actually should. On the other hand, there are convincing arguments that helmets don’t help cyclists, so they probably would not help people in cars either.
People are actually calling for governments to make anyone wear a helmet when tobogganing (at least in Ontario)…For the one person every 10 years who gets killed by going head first into a tree.
Wow, that’s seriously Big Brother mentality!
I’m not sure how it is in BC, but people actually believe it’s an “unwritten rule” that you can go 20k over the speed limit in Ontario.
Since many of our city roads have been converted from 4-lanes to 2 lanes (w/bike lane & turning lane), it has forced people to drive the speed limit.
Niagara has been known as having the deadliest roads in Ontario, and when you hear of an accident one (or both) of these words show up…Speed and/or alcohol. From what I’ve seen in many ‘accidents’ in the Lower Mainland, the same thing seems to apply.
Speaking to drivers here, it seems they think you can “get away” with speeding UP TO 20 km per hour over the limit. So 19 kph over is OK, but 20 and up you will probably get a ticket. A lot of them think that “sensible” driving is actually 10 kph over the limit. It’s a bit annoying, given that the same drivers will tell you that what they HATE about cyclists is the way they (cyclists) break traffic laws!
BC has cracked right down on driving drunk, and it seems to be paying off with less drunk drivers – I wrote about it here: The Tough New BC Drunk Driving Laws – An Attempt to Protect the Innocent, or a Self-Serving Money Grab?
The reasonably responsible people at my work actually do not see anything wrong with doing 40 km/hr over the speed limit when coming down Gaglardi. They claim using the brakes will cause them to wear out prematurely! Like the minuscule cost of changing your brakes even compares to the lives lost on that hill. Burnaby installed a pull out on the descent so that the police can enforce the speed limit safely after the last death and these people I work with claimed that it was just a blatant cash grab. I can’t even talk to them sometimes, I just have to shake my head and walk away.
90 people a day died in traffic last year in the US. That’s the equivalent of 9/11 every 3 days. They’ll spend billions on anti-terrorism, wage wars and push changes in policy throughout the world to prevent another tragedy, yet mass transit has to scrape and scrounge for money while roads suck up a third of a city’s budget! Police can’t get funding for traffic enforcement! Roads are designed to allow more cars to move faster.
It’s astounding, isn’t it? The focus on Global is lamenting the deaths and mayhem … yet they don’t seem to be able to see beyond the paradigm we live in. Their logic goes: “cars kill us, therefore, let’s find a way to make cars safer.” How about shifting it to: “Cars kill us (AND the planet), therefore, let’s lose the cars”!