There’s no question Transportation Minister Devin Dreeshen will make Alberta’s highways deadlier with his plan to raise speed limits in several locations.
He’s already made them more dangerous with his half-baked decision to eliminate photo radar on provincial highways and restrict its use at intersections, a policy that took effect, appropriately, on April Fool’s Day.
But Dreeshen, like many in the United Conservative Party (UCP), approaches his transportation portfolio with a perspective like that of teenager with poor impulse control and the keys to his dad’s Dodge Ram pickup.
Let’s parse the language used in Dreeshen’s November 7 news release announcing the UCP’s plan to “engage with Albertans on increasing speed limits on rural highways.”
Here’s his canned quote from the release: “Alberta’s government is investigating how to safely increase speed limits on divided highways, and if Albertans support increasing speed limits. We are investing more than $1.5 billion this year alone to improve highway safety and upgrade infrastructure across the province. We want Albertans to be able to drive the speed limit that the highways are designed for. Modern vehicles combined with public awareness mean we can explore higher speed limits.”
Naturally, the author of the release wants us to think the government intends to safely increase highway speeds, knowing full well that higher speeds will make crashes deadlier. That much is just physics.
The quote then lays out the government’s deceptive case for doing so, defining money spent on road repairs and keeping bridges from falling down as enhancing safety (sort of true, some of the time), claiming highways are designed for 120 km/h when they are clearly not (try crossing the overpass just south of Leduc at the 110 km/h speed limit), and implying that “modern” vehicles are safer at high speeds (well, they’re probably safer than wooden carriages pulled by horses would have been if they could have gone that fast).
As noted in a previous short post on this topic, the claim that you can have your say by filling out a government survey is essentially meaningless since, in the next breath, the Big D informs readers that the government will “conduct a mini-trial of a 120 km/h speed limit to assess the impacts of higher speed limits on divided highways.”
Ergo, they’ve already decided to do this because the irresponsible set that Dreeshen appears to exclusively represent wants it. And, as we observed in this space last time, anything is better than talking about the Notwithstanding Clause.
What will actually happen? We can predict this with a reasonable degree of confidence because of what occurred when British Columbia premier Christy Clark’s “Liberal” government, which was really a conservative government, did the same thing in her province in 2014.
A study published by physicians and engineers from the University of British Columbia “looked at crash and insurance claim data from the 1,300-kilometre stretches of highway where the speed limit was raised to 120 kilometres per hour in 2014,” the CBC reported in the fall of 2018.
The study indicated “the number of fatal crashes jumped by 118 per cent, injury claims with ICBC rose by 30 per cent and total insurance claims went up by 43 per cent.” ICBC is the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia, B.C.’s public auto insurance provider.
OK, there are special factors that made driving more dangerous in rural B.C., the researchers noted. “Travel in rural B.C. is particularly hazardous because of a harsh winter climate, mountainous terrain causing curvilinear alignments, fewer roundabouts (which reduce risk of side impact collisions), and the fact that large regions of the province are remote, with limited access to post-crash trauma care,” the researchers said. Fortunately, there’s nothing like that here in Alberta … oh, wait!
Shortly after the study was published and with grownups back in charge in the B.C. Legislature in Victoria, premier John Horgan’s NDP government rolled back the speed limits to 110 km/h on 15 sections of highway throughout the province.
“We know people want to get where they’re going quickly,” said Claire Trevena, B.C.’s transportation minister at the time. “Our job is to help make sure they also get there safely.”
“Since the former government raised speed limits in 2014, serious crashes have been on the rise,” she added. “By rolling back speed limits slightly, our goal is to reduce accidents, keep roads open and protect the lives of British Columbians.”
“Speeding has been one of the top three factors contributing to car crashes, especially in rural and remote areas of B.C.,” Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry said in the release. “Research has shown that reducing speed lowers the number of crashes and severity of injuries, so I am very supportive of the speed limit reductions. …”
Dreeshen’s previous significant policy decision, celebrated in a juvenile March 27 press release headlined “Alberta is ending the photo radar cash cow,” was removing speed-camera enforcement from major provincial highways including those that run through urban areas. The policy also eliminated “speed-on-green” automatic enforcement at intersections.
“We have officially killed the photo radar cash cow and the revenue-generating ‘fishing holes’ that made Alberta the biggest user of photo radar in Canada,” bragged Dreeshen, who by the sound of it has a heavy foot when he’s behind the wheel.
The minister first announced the policy was coming in December 2024 and paid no attention to the warnings of police and traffic safety experts that time either.
While it’s too soon to have collected meaningful statistics, anyone who has driven on the Deerfoot Trail in Calgary or the Anthony Henday ring road around Edmonton since April Fool’s Day understands that the result has been an immediate increase in speeding and dangerous driving on provincial roads in both cities.
So far this year there have been 29 traffic fatalities in the city of Edmonton, although not all of them have been on provincial roads. That’s up from 26 last year and much lower numbers during the pandemic when, perhaps, Dreeshen’s motoring friends were hiding out trying to steer clear of COVID shots.
Shortly after the government’s April 1 announcement, Edmonton Police begged the city’s drivers to slow down, noting that officers now had fewer tools to keep the streets safe.
Speed-on-green ticketing at high-risk intersections is “part of the solution” to dangerous driver behaviour, Deputy Chief Devin Laforce observed at the time. Devin Dreeshen apparently knew better, though.
You can fill out the government’s survey if you wish. It’s biased in favour of Dreeshen’s plan to raise speed limits, and its suggestion that raising speed limits may help the provincial economy is risible unless you happen to own an auto body repair shop. But you can work around that and let the government know what you really think. It won’t change the plan, but at least you’ll have the satisfaction of being able to say I told you so when the carnage begins.
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