Have you ever given any thought to how far you can see at night as you are driving along down the highway? High beam headlights seem to overpower the dark, but there are a lot of situations where we are limited to using just the low beams. I was required to calculate the safe speed using only low beam headlights at a seminar and I was surprised at the result.
Aside from fire or being hit by other vehicles post crash, a danger most of us may not consider is electrocution. If the collision that you are involved in includes a kiosk or utility pole BC Hydro would like you to know about the dangers presented by electricity.
Party Hearty but beware the morning after! Early in my policing career it was not uncommon to find a drunk driver with a blood alcohol level between .30 and .36. These people were truly drunk and not just impaired as most of us would start to be at the .05 level. Time to head for home and sleep it off because some of us have to be at work in the morning.
Have you ever wondered what the road maintenance standards for B.C. are? How long do we have to wait for snow removal in the winter? How quickly does a pothole need to be repaired? Who is responsible for maintenance and repairs? Some of the answers may surprise you.
Todd Litman of the Victoria Transportation Policy Institute (VTPI) says that Vision Zero will require a change in the way driving risks are measured and future safety strategies are evaluated.
One DriveSmartBC follower shares that one of their pet peeves is drivers who do not have lights on during the day, particularly when it is foggy, raining very hard, or there is a very dark overcast. On their last trip they saw many vehicles with no tail lights on and it was very dark out because of low, thick clouds and rain.
A reader writes to me describing an intersection where collisions occur regularly, some resulting in fatalities. He has observed that the opposing left turn lanes in one direction don't line up directly across from each other but are offset by a few feet. The result is that through traffic in one direction is more obscured by standing vehicles than it is in the other. To complicate matters, one direction has a protected left turn signal and the other direction does not.
Vision Zero takes the position that any loss of life in traffic is unacceptable. The driving environment should be build so that road users are protected. A self-enforcing road is a roadway that is planned and designed to encourage drivers to select operating speeds in harmony with the posted speed limit.
The case of Vora v Adams takes place in the Nakusp area. Douglas Fryer was walking on the right side of 10th Avenue NW because that was the side of the road that street lighting was on. There was no sidewalk, the road was strewn with debris from a previous storm and the shoulders were covered by snowbanks.
Have you checked your vehicle's spare tire recently? Depending on your vehicle you may have a full size spare, a temporary spare or no spare at all. Knowing what to expect in the event of a flat tire will mean avoiding inconvenience or being stranded at the roadside.