2241 replies to this topic

[sebberry]

Whatever it takes, it’s time.

There was a delivery truck of a well known moving company in the fast lane doing well over the limit, putting everyone at risk weaving in and out of lanes passing vehicles. Stuff like that shouldn’t be happening on any road, but on the Malahat?

 

Photo radar doesn't stop people from weaving in and out of traffic or being aggressive dinks.  

 

Speed isn't causing crashes on the Malahat, no matter how many people IRSU hand out tickets to.

[Mike K.]

Speed causes a lot of anxiety for other drivers. It’s also dangerous. Dangerous driving is ticketable, even if it doesn’t cause accidents.

But speed is not always attributed to the cause of an accident because it was the veering into oncoming traffic, or hitting the median, or t-boning a vehicle that appeared around the corner that causes the accident. If you talk to cops about accidents, speed is almost always a factor in highway crashes and basically any situation where there’s a loss of control.

[Barrrister]

Think that same moving trunk was speeding down Rockland.

[Mike K.]

Friday’s rollover on the Malahat: speed.

This morning’s crash in Mill Bay: speed.

What’s it going to be tomorrow?

[sebberry]

Friday’s rollover on the Malahat: speed.

This morning’s crash in Mill Bay: speed.
 

 

Where were those causes published?

[sebberry]

Speed causes a lot of anxiety for other drivers. 

 

Keep right and leave lots of room.  Pretty simple.  And I say this as someone who gets really tense dealing with aggressive drivers.

[Mike K.]

That’s an oversimplification.

Something has to be done about the aggressiveness on that highway. You can be in the slow lane, and still get tailgated because the person can’t move lanes fast enough due to traffic in the fast lane. I saw it yesterday, I experienced it yesterday, and I see it every single time I drive that highway.

[Mike K.]

Maybe the best thing we can do is to have conversations with our friends and colleagues who are aggressive drivers. Maybe they need to hear it from those closest to them, because they may not view themselves as a burden on the roads and just think everyone else is the idiot for not rushing everywhere they go.

I don’t know what the answers are but we now have an accident on the roadway on a weekly basis. It’s the same story on Sooke Road/Highway 14, where they had to close the highway early Saturday morning due to a single vehicle crash. That’s like the third or fourth in two weeks.

[rjag]

Far more likely is driver inattention/inexperience, poor vehicle maintenance, weather, road design, animals, drugs/alcohol etc.

 

Incidents as a direct result of speed relative to conditions (50 in a snow storm or fog is speed) is very low on the list, I think its about 10-11%.

[Mike K.]

Tailgating and dangerous speed are gross negligence, though, not inexperience. Someone riding another vehicle so close the driver can’t see the headlights of the vehicle behind them is attempted murder with a deadly weapon. There’s no other way to describe the action, than to assume the person wants to harm you, and harm you in a bad way quite likely leading to your death.

Imagine if we pointed guns at each other as a way of encouraging people to step aside on the sidewalk. That’s what a motorist tailgating another vehicle is essentially doing.

And a speeding driver overtaking the flow of traffic by 20-30km/h is essentially waving a gun around in their hand. Yeah, they have to pull the trigger, but by holding that gun and waving it around sometimes the trigger will be pulled.

[Victoria Watcher]

enough alec baldwin talk.

[North Shore]

I'd have a whole lot more respect for IRSU if I saw them running speed traps/handing out tickets on the Malahat on sleety/rainy evenings at 5pm in November, rather than sunny Saturday mornings in July...

[sebberry]

I'd have a whole lot more respect for IRSU if I saw them running speed traps/handing out tickets on the Malahat on sleety/rainy evenings at 5pm in November, rather than sunny Saturday mornings in July...

 

I don't know if IRSU has them, but the fine folks who make LiDAR speed measuring guns also have a model that can check for following distance.  I'd have much more respect for IRSU if they targeted aggressive driving like tailgating and failing to signal, unsafe lane changes, etc... than if they camped out running speed traps...

[Mike K.]

Not everyone stopped for speeding gets a ticket, though. Lots of those stops are opportunities for a conversation about safe driving. The driver's attitude during these stops speaks volume, in other words.

[sebberry]

Not everyone stopped for speeding gets a ticket, though. Lots of those stops are opportunities for a conversation about safe driving. The driver's attitude during these stops speaks volume, in other words.

 

I think once IRSU makes the decision to stop a car, that driver is getting a ticket.  The 'grace' threshold has already been exceeded. 

[Mike K.]

Nah, that’s not the case at all. Talk with those guys and see what they have to say.

[rjag]

IRSU will never pull a car over just to have a chat! They also don’t track the impact of their work to see if safety is improved in incident black spots. The vast majority of their efforts are focused on speed and cell phone use and not on collision reduction work

[Mike K.]

Would they continue to operate if their mandate wasn't being met, though? They're just shy of 20 years of operations on the south Island.

 

Here's what IRSU's mandate is:
 

- Harm reduction on BC roadways
- Conduct strategic traffic enforcement in high collision areas in order to reduce the number of serious injury and fatal collisions on BC roads
- Focus on seatbelt compliance, aggressive driving and impaired drivers – the three factors that contribute to most of the carnage on our roads (impaired driving is still the #1 criminal cause of death in Canada)
- Commercial Vehicle Enforcement
- Criminal Interdiction
- Assist Municipal and Provincial traffic enforcement units with strategic traffic enforcement operations
- Traffic Enforcement Officers use both marked and unmarked vehicles, as well as police motorcycles to conduct the traffic enforcement operations – each vehicle is or will soon be equipped with an in car camera.

- Other enforcement tools available to the officers include;

- Radar & Laser speed detection devices
- Alco Sensors – Assists with impaired driving investigations
- Automatic Licence Plate Recognition - detects stolen vehicles, uninsured vehicles, unlicenced drivers, etc
- Traffic Safety Helicopter

 

The members chosen to IRSU are committed to making the roads in British Columbia as safe as possible.

 

 

- https://www.saanichp...vices/irsu.html

 

I have a friend who is a retired IRSU member. He says his stops were about education, and to chat with the person about their choices. He didn't reach for the ticket book unless the person was rude or had engaged in very dangerous driving. Some things get automatic tickets like no seatbelt, texting, excessive speed, etc.

[Victoria Watcher]

So rude gets you a ticket? That seems like bad policy. And poor policing.

[sebberry]

Would they continue to operate if their mandate wasn't being met, though? They're just shy of 20 years of operations on the south Island.

 

Here's what IRSU's mandate is:
 

 

- https://www.saanichp...vices/irsu.html

 

I have a friend who is a retired IRSU member. He says his stops were about education, and to chat with the person about their choices. He didn't reach for the ticket book unless the person was rude or had engaged in very dangerous driving. Some things get automatic tickets like no seatbelt, texting, excessive speed, etc.

 

That's great.  A coworker of mine has a friend who is a cop and is pretty clear about how IRSU is where those who can't quite cut it in normal policing get sent.  His actual words were a lot harsher.