Be safe, slow down

Do you know what will kill you far faster than COVID-19?

A high-speed traffic accident.

And, unlike those wearing masks at the grocery store and self isolating, some drivers seem less interested in taking basic precautions.

Many police forces are seeing fewer numbers of some kinds of calls, but pointing out spikes in others. Of particular note in Atlantic Canada?

Increases in both highway speeds and drunk driving arrests.

The numbers are quite startling: on April 24 on Highway 125 in North Sydney, the RCMP clocked a Toyota Camry doing 165 km/h in a 100 km/h zone.

During a May 1 blitz on the Trans-canada Highway near St. John’s, police “laid 58 speedrelated charges … Of the speeding violations, four involved excessive speeding of 155 km/h, 160 km/h, 162 km/h and 163 km/h. … The driver of one of the vehicles seized called for a friend to pick her up. The friend was charged for speeding at 150 km/h while on the way to pick up the driver.”

Other recent highway stops? A vehicle doing 170 km/h and another doing 160 km/h over a span of two days in rural parts of Newfoundland. A driver in St. John’s was caught driving more than 50 km/h on a street in the west end of the city May 6, and the list goes on.

Those are incredible rates of speed on roadways not designed for that rate of travel — and the kind of speeds that usually garner stunt driving charges and immediate vehicle impoundment. Roads are designed and built, turns are set and banked, for a particular range of speeds. Exceed those speeds, and the laws of the road can be, sadly, overtaken by the immutable laws of physics.

Then mix in the booze.

After making three drunk driving arrests over a span of 18 hours on April 4th and 5th, P.E.I. RCMP said this in a pointed news release: “The Queens District RCMP have recently noticed a concerning increase in impaired driving offences.”

It’s not solely an Atlantic Canadian phenomenon: open, mostly-empty roads across North America are attracting lead-footed drivers to push the accelerator even further towards the floor. Everyday accident rates have fallen precipitously, but, at the same time, the ratio of more severe accidents causing serious injury and death are rising.

A 14-year-old was clocked at 168 km/h on highway 401 in Ontario last Friday — on April 18, a car was stopped near the Ontario/ Quebec border doing a staggering 271 km/h. Toronto police just finished up a blitz that saw 4,986 tickets issued for speeding, stunt driving, distracted driving and aggressive driving. That’s after the same force recorded a 200 per cent increase in the number of stunt driving tickets written in March.

Astoundingly stupid.