Government

The International Transport Forum's Road Safety Annual Report puts Canada in the middle of the OECD Countries for the percentage in change of road deaths from 2010 to 2018 showing a reduction of about 18%. The leader is Norway with about a 48% reduction and the worst is Costa Rica with in increase of about 38%.

RoadSafetyBC secured funding of $612,000 from Transport Canada's Enhanced Road Safety Transfer Payment Program for the BC Road Safety Revitalization Project. The project addresses address current and emerging road safety issues across the province, with wide-ranging and varied delivery locations.

One definition of crowdsourcing is where an organization obtains ideas from a large, relatively open and often rapidly evolving group of participants. An example of how this can be applied to road safety is found in the Spring 2021 edition of Transportation Talk, a publication of the Canadian Institute of Transportation Engineers. The City of Edmonton is asking it's citizens to participate as part of it's current Safe Mobility Strategy 2021 - 2025.

Major changes to the way auto insurance in BC functions took place without fanfare on May 1. According to a summary outlining the key changes on the Borden Ladner Gervais LLP web site, you will no longer be able to take legal action for most motor vehicle collision claims.

This report on auto safety from nader.org is aimed at the new Biden administration in the United States. It advocates turning the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration from "a sporadic, meek consultant to the auto giants" to a strong law enforcement agency. Citing "NHTSA’s inaction and institutional abandonment by Congress and the White House," and "NHTSA’s tiny budget, now far less than what is spent on military bands" it expresses the hope that the administration will begin a new day of public safety.

Imagine how difficult the job must be to keep the 494 chapters of the provincial statutes of British Columbia in order. The legislation that they contain must be added to in order to reflect what we need today, amended as circumstances change and the courts rule on their use and finally repealed as they no longer reflect our wants and needs. Small wonder that some things slip through the cracks.

I’m hoping you can point me in the right direction. My daughter was grazed by a driver who sped through a red light, to be honest she feels if she’d have been walking any faster she’d have been hit and likely killed due to the speed at which the car was traveling.

This happened at the intersection of Union Rd and Glenmore Rd in Kelowna, at exactly 10:45 pm as she walked to catch a bus.

Premier John Horgan has issued letters of expectation to the heads of the government ministries. There is mention of reducing ICBC rates, but no direct instruction on improving road safety. The Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure says that the ministry's responsibilities, which includes highway construction, maintenance and operations are central to safety.

The Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure has released the 2020 version of the Traffic Management Manual for Work on Roadways. This is essentially an 815 page textbook outlining fundamental principles and guidelines for traffic management and traffic control in work zones. The goal is to ensure the protection of workers and the safe and efficient movement of road users through the work zone.

Belair Direct, the auto insurance arm of Intact Insurance has announced that it will stop selling auto policies in BC effective December 1, 2020 and renewing policies on January 1, 2021. They see ICBC’s recent regulatory changes and the province’s current auto insurance market conditions as having reduced opportunities for the private sector to compete.