It marks a year since the high collision corridor was implemented to the east of Regina, and a similar amount of time since I called it a terrible idea in this very space. In that time, we have theoretically had the ability to adjust and find out for certain if the reduced speed limit makes sense. So after a year, has my own mind changed about the attempt at making this stretch of the Trans Canada more safe?
In reality, when I had written that column a year ago I had yet to drive the stretch of road in question, so I didn’t know that in reducing the speed limit the road was made into the most terrifying stretch of highway I have ever driven. I knew that, in theory, reducing the limit to 90km/h would not lead to people actually reducing their rate of travel, and even with hundreds of signs warning you we would still have people travelling 110km/h like they always have. This makes the limit dangerous, because if you even attempt to follow the recommended speed limit your rear window will immediately be full of Ford F-150. As someone who doesn’t want to pay a speeding ticket, I’m still trying to drive 90km/h on that stretch of road, so for a long stretch of highway I’m actually ignoring my own safety in order to not pay a fine, a single emergency in front of me would mean severe injury at a minimum.
The problem is the same as it has always been, it’s a stretch of road with a reduced speed limit which is also visibly wide open and relatively free of obstructions. As a result, that means we have drivers who don’t believe that the speed limit should be reduced from the rate of travel only a few kilometers down the road. The end result is that they simply do not obey the speed limit – it doesn’t make sense to them, so why should they? It is always more difficult to make people obey laws that they don’t understand or believe in, and that is plain to see when you travel down a road with a speed limit lower than anyone driving it actually agrees with. This is why nobody seems to obey the limit.
The reduced limit makes things more dangerous when you’re someone who isn’t a regular commuter and doesn’t know where the speed cameras are, and are trying to avoid a ticket. This means you’re fighting the flow of traffic, and that means you’re basically an obstruction on the roadway. People tailgate, there’s no real flow of traffic anymore, and in general it’s just a mess of a roadway. It’s a major accident waiting to happen, just because it has made traffic so much less predictable in that area. Some might suggest even heavier enforcement, but that area already has a heavy police presence and speed cameras, none of which have done anything to actually affect how people drive down the highway.
The high collision corridor is not a solution, it’s not working and about the only thing it’s actually doing is making me very reluctant to make a trip to Regina – while that does reduce traffic in some ways, it’s not really the solution that is best for anyone. The only way to make that stretch of road safer is to redesign it, use things like overpasses and better merging lanes to get the roadways safer. Reducing the speed limit isn’t making things safer, it’s making them absolutely terrifying, and I’m stunned that we haven’t seen a rash of rear-ending incidents caused by bunching traffic together.
