"Cash for Scrap Vehicles" reads the slogan spray painted on the side of a brightly coloured rust bucket parked precariously on the bank between a fence and the side street. It is visible from the main highway as you drive by and if you look carefully at it you can also see the telephone number to call to take advantage of the service.
The Victoria Transport Policy Institute is an independent research organization based here in our province dedicated to developing innovative and practical solutions to transportation problems. They regularly make research papers available to the public and here are the most interesting from their last newsletter:
Last week I received an e-mail from a young lady who was a student at a university in eastern Canada. She was involved in a traffic safety program on the campus that aimed to make it more pedestrian and bicycle friendly. She said that they had posted a number of new signs and painted some crosswalks but the drivers largely ignored them and drove the way they always did, which wasn't courteous to other types of road users.
Here's a handy document produced by the Commercial Vehicle Safety and Enforcement people who are part of the BC Ministry of Transportation. It explains how to determine the Gross Vehicle Weight Rating, Brake and Driver's Licence requirements for various types of recreational vehicles (RV) operated on BC's highways.
The Traffic Injury Research Foundation (TIRF) is pleased to announce the launch of the Young and New Driver Resource Centre. The new centre is a one-stop shop on young and new driver issues that is designed for parents, young and novice drivers, researchers, and policymakers.
A new poll by the Traffic Injury Research Foundation (TIRF) reveals that Canadians are only moderately concerned about elderly drivers as a safety issue. “We expected more Canadians to be concerned, particularly as the population of elderly drivers is growing and will double in the next 25 years,” says Ward Vanlaar, a research scientist for TIRF.
Who is responsible for a crash? This is a question that I am asked fairly frequently, usually by a driver who is expecting that the other driver is totally at fault for a collision that they have been involved in.
Have you ever been traveling a long distance from home and received a traffic ticket that you felt you should dispute in court? Were you disappointed to learn that in order to dispute the allegation you would have to travel all the way back to the court nearest to the place where the ticket was written? Many drivers decide at this point that the issue is not worth pursuing, pay the ticket and carry on.
"Ah, the Christmas driving spirit is manifesting itself everywhere. I was sitting in a mall parking lot waiting for my wife and whiling away the time by watching what was going on in the vehicles around me. It was not a happy time of year for the occupants of some of them!
There has been an interesting discussion in a driving forum that I moderate on the internet in the past week. The initiator of that discussion wondered why he had been hassled by the police for driving when his blood alcohol level was less than the legal limit. He felt that a 24 hour prohibition was inappropriate when he "only blew a warning."