GINTA – There is room for improvement in road safety
(Image: Pixabay.com)
IT MAKES ME THINK of a game of peek-a-boo every time I see it. A police officer with a radar gun hides behind a tree or an object big enough to hide his or her presence. If you ask me, that’s money well spent given the number of drivers speeding.
Speeding may seem like a good solution when running late ‘just this one time’, but it is never worth the risk of causing a crash and possibly taking someone’s life. Let’s not kid ourselves though.
It’s not just someone running late. One too many drivers love speeding, whether in town or outside of it (construction zones included!) and as a result… may God help the rest of people engaged in traffic, pedestrians, cyclists, and other drivers too.
Some Kamloops roads that see a lot of traffic, hence a lot of speeding, such as Summit Drive and Pacific Way, have the speed displays that blink when you exceed the limit.
It’s a reminder for those who care and another thing to ignore for those who don’t. Would more fines (and increasing with each new offense) deliver the message?
Daniela Ginta is a mother, scientist, writer and blogger. She can be reached at daniela.ginta@gmail.com, or through her blog at http://www.danielaginta.com.
ArmchairMayor.ca 
While I certainly agree with the basic premise, that unsafe driving, however caused, is creating highway chaos and needless injury and death, I would not have placed the majority of the blame on speeding.
As motorcyclists, without a ton of metal protection encasing us, we develop a unique, and defensive approach to driving, and reacting to the driving of others. Those who exceed speed limits are not the drivers that concern us the most, provided they maintain a safe distance and don’t tailgate in an effort to gain slight advantage, when passing. If the truth were fully told, many of us enjoy the exhilaration of driving fast ( and sometimes over the posted limit ), ourselves.
It is the distracted driver ( usually owing to cellphone use ) that worries us far more, as their behaviour can be erratic and unpredictable. I, myself, make it a practice to attempt to make actual eye contact with such a driver before proceeding through an intersection.
Although younger drivers sometimes don’t like to hear it, cellphone use ( whether “hands free” or not ) and responsible use of the highways, including respect for the rights and safety of all others concurrently using the highway, are not compatible. Period!
We humans are far less effective at “multitasking “ than we believe ourselves to be. Driving a car, while engaged in a phone conversation, is, by its very nature, a very dangerous activity.
We all have seen this behaviour far too often ( as we did with impaired driving in the 70s and 80s, before there was effective law and enforcement) and it is time we recognized it as the equal, in terms of potential to create havoc and put lives at risk, of impaired driving,
It is a far more dangerous activity than speeding.