You do the speed limit on BC highways? Odds are you are a liar.

Over the weekend I drove to and from BC Interior and I'm here to confirm that speed anarchy is alive and well on the Coquihalla Highway. Not that it's a bad thing, but how can the speed limit, which is supposed to represent the UPPER limit of safe travel speed, be so out of touch with reality? Nobody, and I mean NOBODY, travels the speed limit of 110 kph on that road...not even the lone police truck that I followed which was responsible for a bottle neck which developed behind him at 20 clicks over.

Admittedly some people are not responsible enough, to see their driving limitations for what they are, and we need laws (and training and testing) to include them. However virtually everybody, that I associate with, feels that speed laws and enforcement in BC, and many places in Canada for that matter, are nothing short of a joke.

Accordingly when you set the law up as an ass, the predicable outcome is large numbers of people simply reject it. I happen to feel that I have more integrity than most, because I admit I am one of those people. In some circumstances, I might even travel faster than the general traffic flow when conditions dictate it's ok to do so... in my opinion (and why wouldn't I rely on MY opinion having logged well over a million miles which included far too many road signs in BC telling me to slow to 30k only to confirm yet again what previous driving experience showed me repeatedly I could safely do at 2 times what the sign told me was safe). So I now do what it appears everybody else does; I ignore signs and drive how I feel it's most safe to do so.

I'd like to see the bar raised so that good drivers are not punished and bad drivers are not on the road. Our definitions of good and bad drivers are are different than your government's definition whose focus is still primarily on demonizing the speeder... which is you and me. Don't tell me you don't speed because if you do, you are either a member of a very small (frequently annoying and dangerous) minority, a liar ... or simply not a driver.

There are many people like me, nearly everybody between Hope and Kamloops last weekend it seems, that will be at complete odds with the government and law enforcement until speed laws are set without politics as the basis, but instead with the idea that the reasonable actions of the reasonable majority are considered legal.

Have you ever pondered the psychology behind the deliberate left lane hogs in BC? Actually, I consider them a metaphor for a unique culture that we have developed in BC where it's considered a good thing to hold back the best people and make them suffer like everybody else. It happens with entrepreneurs, the wealthy, the educated, and all kinds of people .... and it's especially apparent with drivers. In fact, it's likely the underlying reason the NDP stands a good chance of winning the next election. It's called "misery loves company". The 12 rich asian teens, who had their sports cars impounded last year, comes to mind as an excellent example of an ignorant proletariat lynch mob that wanted retribution against those people who had everything they didn't have... and likely never will have. They must have been guilty...look at their cars after all!

It's weird, you can travel all over the planet and see some damn good driving on far worse roads and in worse vehicles than we have in BC. You see people working with each other to ensure traffic flow and safety. How can this be, that it's that way there and not here? Come here and it's adversarial. Shitty driving is not only tolerated, it's encouraged. In my opinion, this is a direct consequence of bad leadership that's been allowed to run roughshod over a public that's just too resigned to their stupidity to fight it. They (spineless politicians) have relied on opinions, with rare exception, from taxpayer funded people with vested interests (such as retired former police working for manufacturers of traffic "safety" or "enforcement" equipment) or concentrated experiences (ie police who view the world from the dashboard of a police cruiser) which have produced a certain mindset which is at odds with people like me who believe they know better. As a result, we've got laws to protect stupid drivers and punish good ones... in many cases.

We've got some of the best roads in the world, some of the most expensive and roadworthy automobiles... and yet some of the lowest speed limits in the industrialized world. How stupid and patronizing is it to hear over and over ... "but there are bad drivers who cannot handle speed or cars"? Are we really expected to believe there is a larger concentration of them here? Really?? Well, get them off the road or get them out of the way, but don't punish those who know better!! Germany absorbed their shitty drivers when the Iron Curtain fell. What sort of drivers do you think they are now that they've had to step up their game? I'll give you one guess.

Why bother to even build the super highways in the first place? One could actually say that transportation in BC with its high speed highways and irrational speed limits could best be described as Dr. Doolittle's "Pushmi-pullyu" ... a sort of paddling upstream, or a form of pissing in the wind. In fact, one might even look at this policy as a proxy for everything one sees wrong with government; spend a fortune on a super highway, then send out the uniformed tax collectors to clobber the drivers for driving as intended... a sort of double whammy. A double "FU", if you will.

Not long ago, I followed a driver who in my opinion was a very good driver; driving consistently in the right lane until he encountered a slower vehicle, signalling to pass on the left and signalling again to pull back in on the right when safe to do so. He left plenty of room between himself and other vehicles. He allowed them to pull in front of him when he anticipated that they would run out of lane space as they approached cars ahead. In short, a courteous and consistent driver. The kind I would feel safe being on the road with; the kind I could trust and anticipate his moves. In fact, my passenger and I were both discussing his driving as model behaviour. One problem, he was travelling about 15 to 20 over the 100 kph limit just west of Hope. What happened to him 10k to the West of Hope on Hwy 1? An RCMP cruiser, waiting on an on-ramp pulled in behind him to pull him over. I was curious so I pulled in behind the two vehicles and waited to ask him why he was being apprehended. The reason? RCMP had tracked him on the Coquihalla at over 40k over. And they'd tracked him by helicopter no less. Big boys and their toys. If you think that 150k on a highway like the Coquihalla in mid summer deserves points and a fine, let alone a vehicle seizure, then we do have a big rift in perception in terms of right and wrong.

Drivers vote with their right feet on that road and guess what? The correct speed limit is NOT 110 kph. A drivers' advocacy group which I am a co-founder of (SENSE www.sense.bc.ca) pressured the Liberals into doing an "independent" speed limit review. Have a look and see what they said about the Coquihalla. This is not rocket science.

I frequently reject road travel in BC because I am far more terrified of law enforcement than I am of encountering irresponsible and dangerous driving. And I say this as a motorcyclist that ended up, in the past, twice in hospital and nearly killed, after being struck by two drivers, on different occasions, that were dangerous for reasons other than their speed.

Yet I am more terrified of law enforcement? There is something wrong with this picture.

Realistic Speed Limits Prevented by BC Politics

The Vancouver Sun originally posted this in May 2009 (I am the author), however it is gone now. Currently the BC Solicitor General is considering the merits of "Keep Right Except to Pass" so I thought a good idea to republish....

In 1996, 25,000 names were gathered in British Columbia for a petition calling for the removal of photo radar and an independent review of speed limits. The review was completed in 2002 and it revealed what most drivers already knew; that limits on some B.C. highways are set incorrectly, mostly too low.
Over the past 20 years, the B.C. population has increased by more than 30 per cent and roadways have been busier than ever thanks to a recently robust economy. Despite this, we have enjoyed a reduction in crash-related fatalities of nearly 40 per cent from a peak in 1990 -- more cars, more trips, and fewer deaths.

Yet the shrill cries of "Speed Is Killing Us" are still heard. Ironically, the enforcement emphasis during the past six years, during a period of dramatic economic growth and road use, has been rightly redirected toward offences with a higher correlation, to at-fault crashes rather than speeding.

The RCMP now issues about 250,000 tickets per year for speeding, less than half issued during the peak of photo radar. If proponents of more speed enforcement were correct, there should have been a noticeable increase in fatalities during this time. It has not happened just as it did not happen in the United States subsequent to the 1996 removal, despite intense lobbying of special interests, of the federally mandated 55-m.p.h. limit.

The RCMP leadership in B.C. can be given credit for implementing a new philosophy of targeted enforcement which has produced real improvements in highway safety, moving from speed traps to crash black spots. However, the baseline -- the law -- remains flawed.

Laws must be set with the reasonable actions of the reasonable majority in mind, and there is no value in legislation that there is neither the will nor the means to enforce. Anything to the contrary and the door opens for arbitrary abuse, as is the case with photo radar.

If a particular limit is routinely and safely disobeyed by the reasonable majority, it can hardly be called valid. Incorrectly set speed limits are a guarantee of non-compliance, necessitate more police for enforcement, are expensive for motorists (increased fines and insurance), reduce road capacity and efficiency, increase disrespect for laws in general, and can even embarrass politicians whose actions are not consistent with the laws they oversee.

So why then, did the Ministry of Transportation refuse to implement the recommendations in the report it commissioned? Further, why spend taxpayer money in the first place, if there were no plans to act on it? Answer: Politics.

Judith Reid, then minister of transportation and highways, told me during a 2003 meeting that the optics of raising speed limits were bad. Nobody wanted to be the minister during a crash fatality on a road with a higher speed limit -- especially after the public had been bombarded for several years with ICBC's "Speed Is Killing Us" propaganda. Additionally, the change needed to be approved by then solicitor-general Rich Coleman, and that was not going to happen.

An odd thing occurs with the subject of speeding; few drivers see themselves as speeders. While many gasp at tickets for 40 km/h over the posted speed, few connect the dots and realize that most drivers are technically speeding when conditions are good. So if the legal speed limit on a highway is 90 km/h and 85 per cent of the drivers are travelling 110 or 115, the question should be: Are they travelling excessively over the safe speed for conditions? In B.C., the answer is often no.

Highway safety requires two key ingredients: minimal speed variance and reduced traffic volume. Increasing highway capacity and design speed is one way the government reduces volume, but danger increases when vehicles impede others.

A much-needed improvement in B.C. is "Keep Right Except To Pass" legislation allowing police to enforce signage recently placed on highways to enhance safety, by reducing both vehicle interactions and speed variance, HOV lanes included. The Institute of Transportation Engineers recommends setting speed limits based upon an upper limit (85th percentile) of free-flow vehicle speeds.

Drivers naturally comply with limits viewed as reasonable, thus reducing speed variance and potential interactions between vehicles. Everybody wins; scofflaws are fewer and easy to apprehend, drivers are safer and politicians need not fear their driving records.