We all live through these Alberta winters, and we all understand that the roads get treacherous.
When the roads get icy, motorists get less traction and therefore slip much more easily. This stuff is all common sense.
Last week however, with more than 20 collisions and rollovers on the roadways within Westlock County, it just makes us scratch our heads.
With the amount of traffic on the highways, it’s inevitable that sometimes things will go awry. Like it or not, sometimes there are collisions. One or even two collisions in a week can be brushed off as an unfortunate but inevitable turn of events.
But 20? Come on.
Deputy fire chief Brian Byrnell put it best when he said road conditions aren’t the cause of collisions. It’s people who don’t drive for those road conditions who cause the collisions.
Truer words have rarely been spoken. We take not only our own lives into our hands, but the lives of everyone else on that highway. And even if there are no injuries, how much does it cost to have emergency crews respond to 20 different calls in a single week?
The question is, what, exactly, can be done to prevent this sort of thing from happening? More enforcement?
Police already have the authority to issue speeding tickets even when vehicles are going slower than the posted limit if the vehicle is going too fast for the conditions. How fast is too fast for the conditions? Maybe it’s reasonable to leave the call up to motorists, but the rash of incidents last week seems to indicate that’s not enough. Besides, how can one prove in court what speed is appropriate for icy highways?
It’s unfortunately not uncommon to be driving 80 or 90 km/h down a slippery highway and have the white-knuckle experience of a vehicle coming up behind you at 120 or 130 km/h, following within metres of your vehicle, then passing unsafely.
Obviously, the common-sense approach isn’t working.
We used to say it was common sense not to drive while distracted, but it eventually became obvious that we needed to legislate that common sense. Perhaps it’s now time to impose winter speed limits of 70 or 80 km/h on our roads. We should at least have an honest and open discussion about it.
