A place to discuss all the news and events taking place in the province of Ontario, Canada.
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"I hate these damn bike lanes. Screw your studies. I'm not reading that"
"Cut gas taxes. I see no reason why I should pay to support public transit"
"Fuck speed limits. I'm proud to break the law"
This sense of entitlement is insane.
Their twitter is full of other such wisdumb
What a fuckin' traitor.
I'm only like 99.9% against Trump wanting to revoke citizenships. But the there's guys like this and I gotta think "if he's not going to fuck off himself..."
Wants our government to concede to trump then complains that they nearly need to be threatened to do their job. Pretty sure give up Canadian sovereignty is not listed as the role of our politicians.
61 in a 50 is 22% over.
61 is almost 49% more kinetic energy than 50.
I'm actually sympathetic to these folks, because there's a bunch of studies that show that people drive the speed that feels safe. You can't engineer a road to be safe for 15 mph over the posted speed limit and be shook when folks do the speed that feels safe (the US does this ALL THE TIME). That kind of engineering is all but guaranteeing that an enforcement control is going to be a money printer.
I've encountered a few roads in my time driving where the speed limit doesn't match actual driving conditions at all.
I think by now we should have the technology to do statistical analyses on actual road data (currently observed speed vs. speed limit speed) to more accurately assign speed limits that are safe enough that enough people actually follow them.
@Gork @three_trains_in_a_trenchcoat
My understanding is, when they design a road they do calculate the "engineering speed limit", the safe speed given road geometry and surface and visibility, etc., but then they mostly ignore it and assign an arbitrary limit from the standard list for that type of roadway.
We botched raising the limit for 400-series. We should have gone to 120km/h with actual enforcement, but what we did was 110 and a wink, and now 1 in 3 drivers do 130km/h.
I’m actually sympathetic to these folks, because there’s a bunch of studies that show that people drive the speed that feels safe.
Problem: Driving faster doesn't make anyone safer, so that's not true. Studies usually show that people drive at what "feels comfortable" for the design of the road, which is vastly different from what's safe.
I've been driving for decades and never felt compelled to drive at excess speeds of what's posted. I've certainly never had the urge to go 90km/h in a 40km/h or 100km/h in a 60km/h zone.
If people are unfit to drive at the posted speed limits, they should consider taking other forms of transportation.
What you're describing is what I meant. If you're driving at a speed that feels uncomfortable, it's likely because it feels unsafe. I'm glad you're a human cruise control, because I'm not, I often do vibes based speed control and I'd be very vulnerable to speed traps. I know I'm a bad driver, and I'd much rather take the bus, train, or bike lane if it was realistic to do so; I honestly hate driving.
The studies really show that narrow roads make drivers slow down, while wider roads have them increasing their speed.
Make roads like 3 inches wide.
The studies really show that narrow roads make drivers slow down, while wider roads have them increasing their speed.
Because they are uncomfortable or comfortable depending on the road design, not because they want to drive safer. They don't want to hit a plastic bollard, but have no problem driving millimetres away from cyclists, for example. 😱
That's exactly the point... If they drive safer because they don't want to scratch the paint on their car or because the feel some kind of communion with others, what difference does it make? We often chalk up problems to "personal responsibility" when we should be focusing waaaay more on systems and the built environment.
People use things the way they're implicitly built to be used.
If they drive safer because they don’t want to scratch the paint on their car or because the feel some kind of communion with others, what difference does it make?
Maybe I didn't get my point across clearly. People may be worried about the paint on their cars, but that doesn't mean they are worried about the safety of others.
Of course, driving slower is still driving slower, to the benefit might still be there.
However...
If someone chooses to only drive "safely" because their car would get scratched, rather than drive safely because it could kill a child, that person should be taken off the road. It's unbelievable that drivers shouldn't be expected to drive with the safety of other human beings (and animals) in mind.
Instead of hoping people will feel a particular way, would it not be easier to get people to drive safer using measues that directly cause them to drive more safely, irrespective of their feelings in the moment?
It may be a matter of opinion, but if a driver doesn't have the ability to drive safely (i.e. defensively, with concern for others, etc.) without the use of the guardrails (no pun intended), then they really shouldn't be driving.
Driving is a skill. If it requires "hacks" or mind games, then we're doing something terribly wrong.
Some countries that have implemented safe street design also have drivers who know their place on the road.
Safe street design won't have the same effect in countries where drivers feel entitled and for which their behaviour has no consequences.
For example, we have stop signs and red lights. Everybody who drives should know what they mean.
But we have the majority of drivers rolling through stop signs, and quite a few ignoring red lights. You can't really design this stupidity out. Roundabouts are not an answer when the attitude of entitlement still exists. We are just shifting the bad behaviours to another part of the road.
And in particular Ontario, where our government would rather build wider roads with fewer safety implements, makes this challenge even more difficult. Drivers need to change their behaviour, and need to, well before we make the roads "safe by design".
By all means: be an advocate for safer driving. Just know that this kind of advocacy been the dominant strategy for decades and the research says it doesn't work, or at least not as well as roads engineered to be safe. Have a look at the work by Strong Towns for more information, if you're interested.
I know there's nothing I can say in this moment that will change your mind, as were just typing to eachother on the internet. I'm just an advocate for this because I believe it has the potential to fix huge portions of Canada and Noth America generally, without a strictly left/right partisan stance.
For sure. Don't mistake what I wrote (my ideal) vs. my IRL advocacy (i.e. working with my municipality, region, and cycling advocacy groups to get safe road designs implemented).
I know I can't change how people behave behind the wheel, any more than you can change American gun culture. The best we can do is design safer roads by design... those figurative guardrails... and encourage people to do better in the meantime.
We do still need automated enforcement, and more police enforcement, because people going excessive speeds or burning through red lights can, and do, kill other people. Plus, we need more revenue to build safer infrastructure 😀
Hitting someone at 60km/h vs 50km/h could mean the difference between whether they survive or not. This person should not be driving.
Maybe we should focus on stopping them being on the road to begin with?
My impression is that there has been an unspoken compromise between safety advocates and ordinary drivers, with the safety advocates getting to set low speed limits and the drivers getting to ignore those speed limits. Speed cameras are putting an end to that compromise. I wonder if that will generate the political will necessary to increase speed limits - there are, after all, a lot more speeders than safety advocates.
Speed cameras are often implemented in areas where heavy pedestrian traffic exists or a history of car crashes has happened. The goal of the cameras is to reduce speed to prevent crashes and reduces injury and death. The solution is not to raise speed limits just because drivers feel entitled to not follow the limit.
Imagine if we did this for other laws. Well people are still murdering each other even though its illegal so we might as well make murder legal. This may seem like an extreme example but speed is one of the biggest factors in how deadly a crash is, so just increasing the speed limit is basically saying we are okay with more people dying so long as they think traffic is moving faster.
Making something legal because a lot of people are doing it anyway does happen. Consider, for example, the decriminalization of marijuana. I wonder if, in fact, it's actually the most common mechanism by which something that was once illegal becomes legal. I don't hear a lot about criminal laws that were strictly enforced being repealed.
The legalization of marijuana came after there was evidence for decades it was mostly harmless. We have had evidence for decades that speed makes things more dangerous on city streets. There are better ways to get you there faster than jeapordizing public safety.
I think you're right. I wonder where cops fit in that relationship. In Ontario, cops rarely seem to ticket speeding. Is that because of political pressure? Because the police brass don't value speed limits?
Ten over is standard her cops don't even notice anything less than 20 over if you aren't in a school zone
Speed limits are arbitrary.
50 vs 49 or 51 may be arbitrary, but overall there's a relationship between speed and car accidents which makes setting speed limits a real judgement call.
And remember that kinetic energy goes up with the square of the velocity, so a crash at double the speed is theoretically four times as deadly. Even modest reductions in speed greatly increase survivability of an accident.
Isn't there a relationship between the road surface material, angle, width, and surrounds that dictates a safe speed range?
It's not entitlement if the laws make no sense.
Ontario entitled drivers was one of the tipping points on my pro and cons list of leaving Ontario, to move to BC.
I'll preface by saying I'm a safe driver, no accidents in 38 years of driving.
As a driver of a Honda: I had Chrysler owners try to drive me off the road yelling nonsense about jap scrap.
As a motorcyclist in a curve of on ramp: I was gaining on a lifted truck, not fast or tailgater just started in the ramp later and catching up, douch in truck didn't like that his truck wasn't handling as well so he purpose left the road and drove on the gravel shoulder and gunned it to spray gravel all over the road. Obviously I just back off the throttle to straighten the bike up. While he sped off.
As a cyclist: I had two major ones. A truck didn't like that he had to go around me, he didn't want to leave his lane to pass and just kept honking and yelling get off the road. I countered I have the same right as you. He did not like that so passed me then turned hard to the curb forcing my bike between his truck body and the curb where I had to hop onto the sidewalk.
The other was me cycling on the side of road and passing traffic as they slowed to a stop, some ass threw open his passenger door to block me moving forward. He wanted to be first.
Just losers. BC drivers understand cycling and pedestrians
Oh so this is the guy who drives an inch from my bumper whenever I don't speed.
They should become speed limits, rather than remaining speed targets.
If you where driving with 61 inn 50 area, you shouldn't be driving!!!! How many people must die or left permanent disable, for you to drive faster?
The gall of you people. Wow.