KAMLOOPS — Staying safe on the road isn’t a new issue, but thanks to a report released yesterday, by BC’s Provincial Health Oficer, new light has been shed on some of the key factors behind motor vehicle crashes on province roads.
“We’re all guilty of some bad habits, somewhere along the way.” That quote is from Lorrie Stirling, who has been teaching young drivers in Kamloops for nearly six years; in that time, she’s seen plenty of bad habits, mostly from other drivers on the road.
“They see ‘student driver’ all over the car, or an “L” or an “N” [graduated licensing indicator], and they do whatever they can to get past [the student driver], even it it’s illegal,” Stirling told CFJC Today. “[Other drivers are] quite often creating a dangerous situation, because they are in a hurry.”
Those dangerous situations can often lead to crashes, and in a new report from BC’s Provincial Health Officer, the statistics from those crashes has been compiled and analyzed, resulting in 28 new recommendations, designed to make BC’s roads safer for everyone on them.
Many of those recommendations suggest better education, when it comes to the three main contributing factors to fatal crashes on BC Roads: speed, which is a cause of 35% of fatalities, impairment, which contributes to 28% of deadly crashes, and distraction, which is at the root of 27% of fatal crashes.
BC’s Minister Of Roads And Infrastructure, Todd Stone, says his government will take a look at the report, and it’s recommendations. In an interview yesterday, Stone said “We all share the same objective, and that’s to do everything we can to make British Columbia’s roads as safe as they possibly can be.”
Another of the recommendations suggested lowering the speed limit in BC municipalities from 50 km/h, down to 30 km/h, in order to lessen the chances, and severity, of collisions between motor vehicles, and pedestrians or cyclists. While there has not been a significant reduction in either of these types of collisions, Stone says “There doesn’t seem to be an adequate level of support for such a move in the province.”
For Stirling, she’ll continue to educate young drivers on the hazards which exist on bc’s roads – she says sometimes, she’s able to learn something from her students. “One of students told me… for him, driving was a privilege, and we should respect it.”
