http://www.theprovince.com/sports/Photo+radar+answer+road+carnage/4143012/story.html

Photo radar not the answer to road carnage
 
 
By Jon Ferry, The Province January 21, 2011
 
Province metro affairs columnist Jon Ferry
 

The ProvinceI don't care what the eco-fanatics say, I love driving a motor vehicle. I especially love it when the folks with whom I'm sharing the road drive safely and with consideration for others.

Which is why I applaud many of the recent efforts being made to curb the carnage on B.C. highways.

I can still recall 1981, when there were a staggering 859 road deaths in B.C. In 2008, the most recent year for which ICBC figures are available, there were less than half that number (354 deaths), despite there being many more registered motorists.

This is still an unacceptably large number. And we must do all we can to reduce the toll. But one thing we mustn't do is impose photo radar.

Indeed, I strongly disagree with the suggestion by Vancouver police Chief Jim Chu that, after dumping the unpopular roadside cameras a decade ago, we should consider reintroducing them.

Photo radar is a government cash grab that does little, if anything, to improve traffic safety. It may even make matters worse as motorists slow down for the cameras, then speed up after them. It's just one more frustrating distraction for drivers.

The fact is, speed alone is not what causes crashes; it's speed that's too fast for the conditions, as Vancouver motoring advocate Ian Tootill and others continually point out.

Left to their own devices, the vast majority of drivers will move along together at an appropriate speed. It's those going much faster or much slower than the rest of the traffic — or otherwise driving recklessly, selfishly or inattentively — who cause most of the trouble.

The B.C. government, however, keeps setting speed limits artificially low. Which is why most motorists ignore them, especially on roads like Highway 1 and Southeast Marine Drive. "We're dealing with speed limits that were designed for cars that were built half a century ago," Tootill told me Thursday. "And we're dumbing down the speed limits to the lowest common denominator. And we're punishing some of the best drivers on the road."

A Victoria-commissioned review of posted speed limits by Wade-Trim, a Michigan engineering firm, found various stretches of road in B.C. should have their speed limits raised to 110 and 120 km/h — or even removed altogether in remote, rural areas. Those recommendations, made in 2003, appear mostly to have been ignored. As one ex-B.C. highways minister told Tootill, raising speed limits would be a risky political move.

But let's consider Utah, host to the 2002 Winter Olympics. According to Salt Lake City's Deseret News, speed limits have crept higher ever since the federal limit of 55 m.p.h. (88 km/h) was removed in 1987.

Road fatalities, though, continue to fall. One part of Interstate 15 through central Utah now has an 80-m. p.h. (128-km/h) posted limit.

"And yet this strip has produced no increase in carnage, as some had predicted," noted an editorial in the long-running daily newspaper.

I believe that, in B.C. or Utah, wherever you have well-designed highways, well-maintained vehicles and well-trained motorists, the number of deaths will keep dropping.

Photo radar and other police speed traps simply slow down that process.

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