When Estevan residents were given the opportunity to express their opinion at the polling stations regarding the addition of another speed zone in the city, they responded with a resounding, “we don’t know.”
The vote count in 2012 was 1,468 in favour of adding a 40 km/h speed zone in most residential areas, while 1,442 were opposed to the additional layer of limitation.
It seems now as if the recently appointed City Traffic Committee is about to come forward with a recommendation to maintain the status quo. They’ll forward their thoughts to the Estevan Board of Police Commissioners, who, in turn, will provide a recommendation to Estevan City council.
We have a tendency to agree with the now prevailing thought process that it’s not necessarily a 10 km/h speed reduction we should be concerned with, but rather the desire to enforce what is already out there in terms of speed limits and a desire to see bad drivers, aggressive drivers, impaired drivers and distracted drivers fined heavily or even removed from our streets and roads.
Estevan Police Chief Paul Ladouceur is probably correct in his suggestion that the problems with speeding are not necessarily those drivers who are topping 40 or 50 km/h, but rather the manner in which they are doing it. Drivers who accelerate too quickly from intersections and stop signals and those who aren’t aware of their immediate surroundings, are going to cause irritations and problems, no matter what the sign says.
Common sense and courtesy are not in their wheelhouse, so-to-speak. These are the drivers who tend to spin out, or slide through red lights on icy streets, and blame the City for not sanding the roads, or they accelerate through pools of water, dousing nearby pedestrians as they speed up around the corners. They need driving lessons, not a new speed limit sign.
With well-posted speed limits of 80, 50 and 30 km/h already in existence in and around the city, we are pretty well protected.
Certainly we would like to see heightened enforcement of 30 km/h speed limits around our schools and public playparks. Those areas appear to attract the most flagrant abusers.
A 50 km/h speed is rarely a concern on residential streets since most are already somewhat restricted with stop or yield signs at intersections. The 50 km/h rate appears to be quite workable on the main throughways such as King Street, Kensington Avenue and Fourth Street and a few other major tributaries.
If Estevan Police Service personnel can maintain a level of diligence, surveillance and apprehension with regards to the stupid, distracted, impaired and needlessly aggressive drivers, and convince the justice system to get on board with them to fine them heavily or remove them entirely, that’s pretty well what we need in this city … not another speed limit layer.
We have had a few vehicle/pedestrian and vehicle/bicycle incidents in the past couple of years, but not at a rate that has raised red flags. In a city of over 12,000, we have to understand there needs to be increasing awareness of traffic volumes and, on occasion, traffic congestion. There will be negative incidents. But if we all agree to treat fellow motorists and pedestrians with a little common sense, courtesy and concern, we’ll do just fine with our current civic speed limits.
