Lower the speed limit on Veterans Memorial Highway

Like many residents of Conception Bay North, I am also shocked and very disheartened by the recent tragedies which have occurred on the Veterans Memorial Highway. Having recently lost my only son to a Manitoba highway accident, my heart goes out to all those remaining loved ones who, for the rest of their lives, will bear the pain of their incomprehensible losses.

The development of the Veterans Memorial Highway has been a tremendous godsend to this whole area over the years, in a wide variety of ways. One can only imagine how different things would be in Conception Bay North if it didn’t exist!

The Veterans Memorial Highway is an excellent Class 1 twolane highway. Echoing the recent sentiments of the RCMP traffic analyst, there is no design or existing flaw that would warrant or cause the current level of accidents. The standard of engineering and construction of that highway is as good as any other of its kind, anywhere, considering the tough challenges presented by our topography, soil and subsoil conditions, weather, etc.

In highway planning and engineering, a common understanding is that the higher the standard of construction, the lower its accident rate.

The prime local example of this is the Trans-canada Highway, which has been constructed to the highest standard of any highway in the province, and is commensurate with any similar class highway in Canada. It boasts many features (double driving lanes separated by a median, wide shoulders, gentler gradients, longer radius turns, etc.) which make it capable of accommodating a heavy, continuous flow of a wide variety of vehicles, at its current maximum speed limit of 100 kilometres per hour. (Obviously, many motorists, foolishly, try every day to prove that it can be safely used at speeds much in excess of that limit!)

While the driving lanes of Veterans Memorial Highway are the same width (12.5 feet) as the TCH, it does not have the other features to the same extent. The cumulative effect of this fact places Veterans Memorial Highway into a much lower safety category than the TCH. Yet, it currently posts the same maximum speed limit.

The reality is that Veterans Memorial Highway cannot compete for safety with the TCH. The hazard of high-speed opposing traffic in such close proximity, alone, raises major safety concerns, and minimizes any hope of accident avoidance or mitigation. It would take a big pile of money to make it otherwise.

For 30 years I travelled two highways considered for many years to be the most dangerous in northern Alberta. In all that time, I do not recall any motorist pulling the kind of stupid, reckless stunts that I’ve seen on Veterans Memorial Highway. Similar to the TCH, the 100-km/h vehicle is the slowest on the road.

Veterans Memorial Highway is nowhere as safe as the TCH at 100 km/h.

I’ve come to think that many users of Veterans Memorial Highway appear to drive in a state of oblivious impatience — with little thought of the dangers or consequences of a split-second incident (blown tire, mechanical failure, animal crossing, collision, etc.). The possibility of an instantaneous lifethreatening “incident” should be front of mind for every driver. The consequential severity of an “incident” at 100 km/h is significantly greater than one at 85 to 90 km/h. It is not a linear scale.

I believe that the safety interests of all Veterans Memorial Highway users would best be served by reducing the maximum speed limit to 90 km/h, concurrent with an ongoing aggressive enforcement campaign to target those who appear to think that the maximum is, in fact, the minimum.

It’s not the highway. It’s the people.

Edward Hodder Shearstown