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Behind-the-Wheel

What caused that crash?

What causes crashes and how do we know?

The Capital Regional District Traffic Safety Commission has proposed time-over-distance-speed cameras in an attempt to reduce serious collisions on the Malahat Highway.

This caused a Twitter discussion whether this is a justifiable solution or not.

On one hand, we have a group that believes the major contributing factor to those crashes is speed. They want to try the speed cameras to see if it will reduce the number of collisions.

On the other hand, you have a group that says show us that speed is a significant contributing factor before we discuss trying a solution.

The provincial government is willing to entertain the idea and has done a road-safety analysis on that section of the Trans Canada Highway.

The last page of that report lists the 12 most common first contributing factor reported by the police and shows that the top three are:

  • driving without due care and attention
  • speed
  • weather.

No numbers are given, just that they form about 35 per cent of total injury and fatality crashes.

I've completed many MV6020 collision reports in my career. I know that the form allowed me to list up to three contributing factors for a collision in descending order of importance.

The choice of these factors by police are based on investigation, experience and opinion. They can also be subjective.

From my experience investigating collisions, both driving without due care and weather most often have a speed component, whether it be speed over the limit or speed relative to conditions.

Many other factors may have a speed component as well. What is recorded primarily as following too closely could be part of an attempt by the offending driver to bulldoze the vehicle in front out of the way so that they can continue their trip at a speed in excess of the limit.

The government removed the requirement to report a collision to police from the Motor Vehicle Act in July 2008. I suspect that this has made determining the cause of minor collisions even less accurate than it was prior to that date.

To some extent, knowing about minor collisions is important in predicting the potential for major collisions.

Major collisions are most often investigated by experienced traffic officers along with collision analysts and reconstructionists. These are well documented and reported.

Serious injury and fatal collision data with speeding involvement numbers should be reliable.

If you want to know where the collisions are occurring, you can visit ICBC's crash maps and select Malahat. You will find that there were 27 casualty and 52 property damage only crashes from 2011 to 2015.

That's a small number perhaps, unless you are one of those numbers or find yourself waiting in traffic for them to be cleared.

For what it's worth, I think that you can reasonably assume that speed is a contributor to crashes on the Malahat from this and that along with the current highway improvements point to point speed cameras could make a positive difference.

We should try.

Story URL: https://www.drivesmartbc.ca/collisions/what-causes-crashes-how-do-we-know

This article is written by or on behalf of an outsourced columnist and does not necessarily reflect the views of Castanet.



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About the Author

Tim Schewe is a retired constable with many years of traffic law enforcement experience. He has been writing his column for most of the 20 years of his service in the RCMP.

The column was 'The Beat Goes On' in Fort St. John, 'Traffic Tips' in the South Okanagan and now 'Behind the Wheel' on Vancouver Island and here on Castanet.net.

Schewe retired from the force in January of 2006, but the column has become a habit, and continues.

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The views expressed are strictly those of the author and not necessarily those of Castanet. Castanet does not warrant the contents.

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