… a much needed refresh of the original site launched in 1996, which was several years after the announcement of the new “information super highway” by US President Clinton. In those days we were still making presentations using acetate on overhead projectors and a decent home PC could cost upward of five thousand dollars. A lot has changed since we got started in 1995 however there’s one thing that hasn’t changed, in fact it’s intensified, and that is the propensity of elected officials to become misguided and greedy when it comes to motorists.

Sadly, the present BC government, just like the last one run by the NDP, has done some dumb things under the guise of public safety. Consequently, BC has not only become one of the most expensive jurisdictions in North America to own and operate a car, but it is a minefield of ill thought out legislation that allows police unreasonable power with the trampling of due process.

How do politicians get away with this stuff in a democratic developed country with an educated population? We often muse that politicians feel it’s their job only to legislate, sometimes mindlessly without thought to the inevitable unintended consequences. It’s what gives them stature among their peers as well as their electorate, makes them stand out with media and makes them feel like they are doing something. Polarized politics in BC have often produced weak opposition and in this respect, the BC Liberals have certainly had very little critical scrutiny. Additionally, when a premier decides who to assign a ministry, it’s not always easy to find someone who has any passion for the job. This has been obvious for some time within the Ministry of Transportation, where no minister we can think of has had any serious knowledge or enthusiasm for driving. The result is what we have today; a bunch of legislation that has been taken virtually unchallenged from the recommendations of the police and various so called “stakeholder” groups (not including SENSE) and career bureaucrats. You cannot expect anybody who takes no interest in the art of driving personally or professionally to do much better than the job this crowd has done. The exception might be Kevin Falcon, who was impressed with (and actually executed) the idea of Keep Right Except to Pass signage on BC highways.

Although many people cheered the recent BC Supreme Court ruling concerning 90 day roadside suspensions, the reality is that it’s brief relief from a dearth of legislation coming from a nanny state mindset which is unrelenting these days. We (SENSE) all wish we could do what we do full time because it’s definitely needed in BC where the career bureaucrats who transcend administrations have had the upper hand when it comes to convincing their bosses that they know what’s best for us and that they are doing the right thing. For as long as we can remember in BC, it has been the practice of bureaucrats and police terms of convincing the public and the ill-informed distracted ministers that drivers are all stupid and that the more legislation they can put in place to punish people for what amount to in some cases benign offences, the better they will look during one of their frequent and well produced staged media events.

Do we believe there are ulterior motives by the career bureaucrats? For the most part no, however the fact that it’s necessary to devote more police (or potentially faux ICBC police “Sherriffs”) and more court time, to ticket and prosecute drivers, does nothing but further entrench those who want to ensure their career longevity. We call this EMPIRE BUILDING. Draw your own conclusions; after all, the more onerous and intrusive the laws, the larger the civil service and justice system becomes. And everybody wins in the above scenario (except tax payers and drivers). One example is the present Solicitor General, who’s displayed her ignorance about causes of crashes more than once publicly, who has performed her dog and pony show unchallenged in front of easy news hungry media, while career bureaucrats feather bed and entrench their careers (not to mention score lucrative consulting gigs after their civil service “careers” conclude).

We think nothing the Liberals and ICBC have done exemplifies greed, hypocrisy and dishonesty more than the recent transfer (also known as theft from BC motorists) of nearly $1B by your provincial government from ICBC reserves to General Revenue. This is nothing more than a dishonest tax to dupe the more gullible into believing the BC Liberals are fiscally responsible. They have been aided and abetted by a virtually silent media shortly after the event was announced in 2010 by Minister of Finance Colin Hansen. Lest you think we are getting too political by dumping on the Liberals, we’ll say right here that NDP public safety critic Kathy Corrigan admitted to CKNW’s Bill Good the other day, that the NDP might do no differently when it comes to raiding Crown Corporations’ coffers. The NDP meddled with ICBC before and you can bet money they will do it again if given the chance. They are also complete failures when it comes to fairness in traffic safety legislation.

ICBC’s President has floated the idea of raising rates twice this year. Timing was off for him earlier in the year when he was spanked by Solicitor General Shirley Bond for floating the idea of triple dipping (fines, penalty points and increased rates) for “bad” drivers. Even the Solicitor General questioned the label of “bad driver” for those having received one or two speeding tickets. One had to give the Solicitor General credit for seizing the opportunity to steal the limelight when she sensed something just wasn’t going to fly… it was more than could be said for the former premier. He didn’t care what people thought and didn’t mind showing it. However she (Bond) still stood up in the legislature and got her “facts” wrong about the major causes of crashes in BC which is appalling for somebody in charge of the portfolio. Obviously she had not had enough time to rehearse the script she had been given.

But ICBC is back at the trough again looking to raise rates, and this time they will probably get away with it, after all timing is everything. Anybody see some inconsistencies of a premier announcing just a week earlier that the harshest driving penalties in North America are having dramatic safety benefits followed only to be followed up a week later by ICBC’s request for an insurance hike due to more claims? Feeling duped? You should be.

A tired, cynical and resigned public in BC grudgingly accepts this abuse of both trust and their pocketbooks while they go about their busy lives. The media has been complicit also. There’s little or no belief by us at SENSE about a conspiracy there (although there are some in the media that may as well be on ICBC’s payroll because they might as well just be copying and printing ICBC news releases); however one simply needs to understand how the media works. Print media, TV and terrestrial radio are under increasing pressure to compete and cut costs so it’s not always possible to spend a lot of time or money to research a story. So if the Ministry of Transportation, Solicitor General’s office or ICBC spin doctors have designed easily reproduced newsworthy stories enabling easy fulfillment of deadlines…. who can really blame the reporters for going with easy stories?

There is another phenomenon in BC we find frustrating, and it’s the tendency for people to want to fight one off battles. Most drivers clearly don’t buy into BC highway speed limits and you can watch proof of it every day, all day, as drivers make their statements with their right feet. When photo radar was introduced, the business associations with the most to lose such as the BC Auto Dealers Association and the car rental business owners remained virtually silent; preferring diplomacy over principle. One insider at BCADA told us at the time, they did not want to annoy the NDP for fear they may do something to punish them (besides the luxury auto surtax). The BCAA (see our comment on BCAA here) not only did not challenge the NDP over photo radar, but actually supported them and executed a dishonest member opinion survey to justify their support. Obviously, it was too much to ask from BC’s largest dealer of ICBC product to bite the hand that feeds them. Over the last year, the BC Restaurant and Food Services Association disappointingly chose expediency over principle also. They knew the changes to the Motor Vehicle Act were outrageous and wrong. Again they chose diplomacy and chose to ignore the fact that the police had been given unreasonable power by taking away our rights of due process, and chose instead to “talk” or appeal to the government on the basis that drivers could no longer have a drink or two before driving…. and lost. Talk about bad optics and not to mention, stupid!

This is where we at SENSE come in. We don’t get paid, we have no political allegiance and we have no ulterior motives other than we are frustrated and annoyed that this nonsense carries on unchallenged. It’s time once again to hold some feet to the fire and demand some change. It’s not going to be accomplished by one off visits to traffic court to contest your tickets. And it’s not going to be accomplished by reading tabloid style stories written by time and money constrained reporters. There’s power in knowledge and safety in numbers and over time we are convinced both will prevail in righting the BC transportation ship. We want this website to be a repository of information and a discussion site for like minded (and non like minded) people who believe we can do better in BC in terms of the way we manage and execute vehicle transportation, legislation and enforcement. We want the SENSE site to be, once again, the go to site for counter arguments to government spin, as well as a place for intelligent discourse with respect to driving and traffic safety in BC. Please tell your friends, join the discussion and let us know who you are so that we can work toward driving nirvana for everybody.

The Vancouver Sun originally published this article in May 2009 (SENSE Co-Founder Ian Tootill is the author), however it is no longer available in their online archive.

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 2003 and it revealed what most drivers already knew; that limits on some BC highways are set incorrectly, mostly too low. Over the past 20 years, the BC population has increased by more than 30 percent 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 percent 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 mph limit.

The RCMP leadership in BC 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 percent of the drivers are travelling 110 or 115, the question should be: Are they travelling excessively over the safe speed for conditions? In BC, 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 BC 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.

Put very simply, we think the reasonable actions by the safe and reasonable majority should be legal. This makes for fewer lawbreakers, creates more respect for laws, requires less costs for policing and courts, frees up the police and courts to deal with serious crime, costs drivers less in fines, allows driver/taxpayers more disposable income which they can spend on stimulating our economy and, it’s the safest thing to do as we know mean travel speeds will change very little as a result. However, most importantly, speed variance decreases which is another way of saying there is better traffic flow which has known safety benefits, where attempting to enforce unrealistically low limits does not.

Drivers will drive close to design speeds of the roads no matter what the speed limits are. If limits are set correctly, not only will speed limit compliance increase but so will crashes decrease as travel speeds become more uniform. Don’t take our word for it, go here.

So to summarize, the BC Government, ICBC position is as follows: assume everyone will hit each other, clobber them ’til they slow down to the point of harm reduction when they inevitably crash. The SENSE position is to prevent the crash in the first place by minimizing speed variance through realistic speed limits thereby reducing complacency and raising the bar in driving competency. That’s it in a nutshell; a philosophical difference that leads to both plenty of conflict and unnecessary inconvenience and costs. Who’s right? Well BC drivers vote with their right feet every day. Who’s winning? Well the government has your money, unlimited access to it, to win the propaganda war. Call us idealists, but we believe truth prevails.

Recently the RCMP said there has been a dramatic reduction in crashes, deaths and injuries in BC (similar to the US) since the draconian changes to the BC Motor Vehicle Act last fall. One would not be surprised after such a shock to the system. Besides, the restaurant and bar industry felt that everybody stayed home after the changes, so again one would be surprised if there were not a significant reduction. Expect a well choreographed dog and pony show at around the time of the one year anniversary of new regulations. The Liberal government will take credit for this as a direct result of the harsh laws that were passed last fall. They are good at this; not good at much else, but good at putting on a good show for the media, one that seems to reprint just about everything they say, with little critical analysis from both time and budget constrained news reporters.

Interestingly, and surprisingly, there has been a steady reduction in speeding tickets lately. You just heard right, crashes down, speeding tickets down! However while the spin from the RCMP will be one of “hey look our new laws are working” and/or “look we are only going after the worst of the worst”, we believe that this fact confirms the SENSE assertion that there has been an absurd emphasis on speeding offenses in the past which have had virtually zero effect on traffic safety. Think for a minute there is greater speed limit adherence by drivers? Not anywhere we drive. The other thing to keep in mind is that historically when excessive speed was involved in any crash, so was alcohol and/or drugs. This fact is hardly ever noted by media and way under reported. Do you notice speed is nearly always a factor in high profile crashes? Have you seen reports of single vehicle high speed collisions at high speed late at night and think the major contributing factor had nothing to do with alcohol or drugs? If so, you are extremely gullible.

Look, a good portion of this debate could end tomorrow and the government, RCMP and ICBC could gain credibility in the eyes of thinking competent motorists if there were some sanity and integrity in the speed limits.