B.C. Transportation Minister Todd Stone moved to increase speed limits on 1,300 kilometres of rural highway this week despite opposition within his own government, documents show.
The Office of the Superintendent of Motor Vehicles favoured lowering speeds, and warned that even with the safety technology in new vehicles, “there are still new and older drivers who are more likely to crash at higher speeds.”
The superintendent’s office, which recently changed its name to RoadSafetyBC, also cautioned that driving at higher speeds increases the frequency and severity of crashes, according to a government summary of public and private meetings on the issue.
The road safety unit within the Ministry of Justice, meanwhile, expressed concern that raising speed limits would erode safety gains.
“[The] road safety community has been promoting road safety and anti-speed messages for [the] last five years,” the summary document says. “It would be challenging to balance these messages against an increase in speed limits.”
The concerns echoed those of the RCMP and the B.C. Association of Chiefs of Police, both of which opposed any increase in speed limits due to safety concerns.
Stone said Thursday that while he understands the views of the superintendent, police and others, he’s convinced that raising speed limits on some roads will increase safety. He said the idea sounds “counterintuitive” and “outside the box” but that it’s based on an analysis of driving patterns.
“We’ve all become accustomed to the slogan Speed Kills, and speed is a contributing factor in fatalities, there’s no question about it,” he said.
“But it’s not so much speed in and of itself as it is variations in speed.”
He argued that matching the posted limit to the speed at which most people are already travelling on a highway will minimize risk. For instance, he said, 85 per cent of motorists on the Coquihalla are already driving at speeds up to 127 kilometres an hour.
“Meaning, if you’re driving 130, 140, 150, or if you’re driving at 80 or 90, you’re actually at much greater risk of causing a collision.”
As a result, Stone announced plans this week to increase the speed limit from to 120 km/h from 110 km/h on multi-lane divided highways including the Coquihalla and Highway 19 between Parksville and Campbell River. The limits on most other affected highways will also jump by 10 km/h.
Stone dismissed concerns that people will simply exceed the new limits. “We think the speeds we’ve set on these corridors will now be much more aligned with the natural flow of traffic,” he said.
Allan Lamb, associate director of the Justice Institute of B.C., said the government’s decision flies in the face of research that shows the severity of crashes increases with speed.
“Physics applies to this,” he said. “The faster you go, the more likelihood there’s going to be an injury or a fatality.”
Lamb acknowledged that the B.C. government has done more for road safety “than all provincial governments combined.” But he thinks it got it wrong this time because speeding, unlike drinking and driving, is still socially acceptable.
“Does this government want more people injured and killed? Absolutely not. It’s ridiculous to even think about that. However, they are, I believe, reflecting what many people in our province believe is OK to do, which is drive over the speed limit and go faster.”
Dr. Jeffrey Brubacher, an emergency physician at Vancouver General Hospital, sees the results of crashes every day. He said it’s “wishful thinking” to argue that increasing speed limits will make roads safer.
“There’s pretty good evidence, I think, that higher speed is associated with increased crashes, with increased fatal crashes and serious injury crashes.”
Brubacher said drivers have less time to react at higher speeds, and vehicles are harder to control if you hit a crosswind or a bump in the road.
“Some people use the argument that newer vehicles allow these higher speed limits, but I don’t think that’s entirely true, because the reaction time doesn’t change with a new vehicle,” Brubacher said.
He also noted that younger drivers, who are at the highest risk of crashing, are more likely to be driving older hand-me-down vehicles that lack new technology.
“So there’s potentially quite a lot of problems with these [new] speed limits,” he said.
