Renegade Rants Episode 8: Arbitrary Traffic Laws
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This Rant is about stupid traffic laws and why I think many of them are arbitrary rather than being based on any sort of logical rationale.
I have been getting a fair bit of negative feedback lately from people having trouble watching my DTube videos so I have decided to give DLive a try. Let me know how it works for you and which you prefer in the comments section.
My Daily Commute....
During my daily commute, I go through these new playground zones on my way to and from work. The city of Edmonton installed over 400 of these newly reduced speed zones in the past 6 months or so. Supposedly, it was due to community outcry over dangerous driving near playgrounds. I say supposedly because I have my suspicions that the city has ulterior motives.
One of the first roads I turn onto immediately forces me to slow down from 50 km/h to 30km/h and after about a block resume back to 50km/h. Then, there is another playground zone that follows shortly after which means the speed drops back down to 30 for a couple blocks then back up to 50 km/h again.
SourceThe funny (or not so funny) part of this all is that during the times I drive through these zones there are never any kids playing. The playground zones run from 7:30 AM to 9:00 PM which is most of the day and for the majority of that time period there won't be kids playing, especially in winter when temperatures are cold and the sun sets early. Besides, kids don't play outside much anymore anyways.
I don't even think these zones will protect children either. Between the two zones mentioned is a neighbourhood made up of townhouses and apartment buildings. These residents are devoid of yards which forces the residing children to play in their front yards beside the road and out side of the safe playground zone. After being slowed down twice on the same road, drivers will become anxious to get to where they are going and will likely be more prone to speed through these areas. They also will become complacent and forget to watch for children because they aren't in the zone.
That's Not All
These obnoxious playground zones got me thinking about all the other silly traffic laws we have to endure. Speed limits set on two different roads that are nearly identical to one another can be drastically different. In fact, the road that feels like it is safe to drive faster is often the one with the lower posted speed limit.
Modern cars are light years ahead of cars from 40 or 50 years ago and yet speed limits are the same or, in some cases, even less. If cars have better suspension, better tires, and ABS disc brakes instead of crappy drum brakes then how is it that speed limits can't be raised a little? Were the speed limits 40 years ago too high or are modern speed limits too low? The answer has to be one or the other. The speed limits cannot be the same and appropriate in both era's with such a difference in vehicle performance.
I've also come across a few interesting studies over the years and, while I wasn't able to find the specific ones I was looking for, I did find two articles that had similar information. One of them explains how cars that are going significantly over or under the average speed are involved in the most accidents. Note: it wasn't over or under the speed limit, it was over or under the average speed. The second article is about a German town that removed their road signage and traffic lights and reduced accidents as a result.
- https://www.motorists.org/blog/speed-limits-slower-safer/
- https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/germany/2185762/German-town-bans-road-signs-to-cut-accidents.html
SourceSummary
We live in a world that has far too many rules and regulations. Many of these rules have been put in place by bureaucrats and politicians that just think that they have to do something to make people safer. Realistically, most of these rules will do nothing to protect people and are nothing more than an inconvenience and an opportunity for law enforcement to write more tickets. In reality, people make better decisions when those decisions are left up to them.
My video is at DLive
I don't know if any of this is true or not, but it's just my reasoning.
The .05 limit might have been brought in, because of the 12 hour suspensions going out at .08 were getting out of hand. This way you could give out a 12 hour between .05 and .08, and then the harsher suspensions come at above .08. It could also be a cash grab for fines or something.
As for the speed limits, I work for the highways department and I know that resident complaints have a lot to do with the speed zones. The street behind us is now a 30 zone and it is probably two blocks away from the school, arena, etc... The weirdest one is in Fort St. John on the truck bypass. It's in the ALR so the farmers have been busting up their quarters into five acre lots and selling them as building lots, so now there are a bunch of people living along the bypass route. Now they want the limit dropped from 80 to 50 and no Jake brakes.
Huh? It's a truck route. Why would you build on a truck route if you wanted a residential area? Or build a house next to the train tracks and then try to get the trains to stop travelling at night and to quit using their whistles.
Those are the same people that will lose it when someone gets killed on the tracks because they were listening to their earphones and didn't hear the train coming through the crosswalk.
These are also the same people who buy houses right outside military bases and then whine about the jets flying overhead. Boggles my mind, truly.
Those are some good observations. Yeah people are funny, everyone wants someone else to solve their problems for them.
I have seen more accidents happen when people are driving to slow and other people are trying to get around them. Someone driving 40 on the interstate or 35 in a 55 and people get impatient and try to go around in places they should not. Never really seen a wreak caused by someone speeding but that is also because they pass and are gone and I don't see them anymore anyways.
One of the articles I was looking at actually confirmed the same thing. That drivers under the speed limit caused more accidents then those over.
https://sites.psu.edu/siowfa15/2015/09/18/is-driving-faster-safer/
Yeah, the playground thing was probably exactly like the gun control brouhaha here. Probably a kid somewhere got hit by a car while going to/from a playground and now there's a politician patting themselves on the back, saying "There! See, look! I did something! Kids across all of Canada will never get hit near playgrounds again!" Never mind that it's 99.9% useless and illogical, somebody somewhere feels good about themselves over it, and nowadays that's more important than facts or logic.
Something similar happened in my hometown years ago. A pedestrian, instead of walking a few blocks up the road to the traffic signal and crosswalk, tried to beat traffic jaywalking (well, running) across a very busy 4 lane road, and got hit. Everybody in the deceased's neighborhood started screeching about how the death proved they deserved their very own traffic signal instead of having to endure the inconvenience of walking to the nearby crosswalk. And the city agreed! So traffic there for the rest of the population is a freaking nightmare because of that type of stupid knee jerk traffic signal installation.
Ahem. I didn't mean to add so much to your rant :) But I 200% agree about the increasing burden of just plain dumb laws.
As far as the speed limit, there are plenty of people still on the road in older cars (or in my jeep's case, types of cars) that can't handle speeds over 60ish, so possibly the upper limit is held down to minimize the disparity in speeds (and therefore lessen the types of accidents @liberyworms mentions)? Just a guess on my part. My parents' 30 year old SUV tops out around 55-60 and my jeep can do 70 but it's rough--I would drop it back to 60-65 whenever I could. In a world where a "speed limit" was, say, 80 mph, elderly autos would be causing even more issues than they already do.
You make a good point about the older vehicles, that may have some to do with it.
Yeah, everyone always thinks that the government has to do something. They don't grasp that we live in an imperfect world and that no matter how much you legislate bad things will happen. Sometimes you actually cause more bad things to happen then you fix! Plus trying to follow a million rules just stresses people out!
donno what to say, but it also happen in my home town, when people just ignore the traffic sign, like school safe zone. most of the accident in my home town is the ignorance from the biker racing of the public road, or people do not give proper sign when they want to cross the road (there is no zebra cross part in the small city like my home town)
keep safe ride my friend @canadianrenegade
Well to my mind speed limits are important.
(Especially next to schools, Kindergardens etc.)
But they should reduce the sings and make it simpler for everbody.
There is a road nearby where they set up this:
500 m - 30km/h 7am to 4pm (otherwise 50)
200 m - 50km/h
500 m - 30km/h 10pm to 8am (otherwise 50)
Why don’t the just make it a 30-zone all the time?
Braking and speeding up is bad for the environment and distresses your attention from the road.
I agree about the frequent speed changes, they are just confusing and a distraction. To be honest, I think 30 is a little slow (especially when the playground is far from the road or is fenced off.). The time period that it is in effect is to long. There will be no kids playing in these zones in the winter after 4pm if at all.
I think my concern is that kids play in all sorts of places that aren't officially playgrounds and people will be so inundated with signage that they won't be vigilant all the time.
Your post is really interesting like always sir.👍
...my account was hacked last night and the bot created a phishing site link here in the comments from my account ... the link is now removed... Today I got my account back.. sorry about that :( :( :( thanks.
Glad you recovered it. I have been seeing a fair bit of this stuff in the last few weeks.
damn hackers.. lol :) thank you for your understanding :)