Information regarding collisions.
Virtually every crash scene that I attended during my policing career featured at least one good samaritan. These were people who stopped to help another in a time of need, often at some risk to themselves. This kind of selflessness is encouraged with protection granted by law in British Columbia.
This Dutch Hyundai Velostar advertising video (subtitled in English) could really make you think about which side of the vehicle you exit on. In this case, the Hyundai concept is that you cannot exit on the driver's side because there is no rear passenger door there, forcing passengers to exit on the safe side.
This case decides the liability for a collision involving a motorcycle and a pedestrian on Rutland Road near the intersection of Leathead Road in Kelowna. The pedestrian walked into traffic without looking and the view of the motorcycle rider was obstructed by a parked truck.
Right or wrong, the pedestrian is always the loser in a collision with a motor vehicle. Nowhere in British Columbia is that more apparent than in Vancouver. So far this year, the pedestrian death count has already exceeded that of the entire year of 2010.
I was driving along no.6 in Richmond with a girlfriend and reached into my bag for smokes and an oncoming car came so I swerved a bit to the right and hit a hydro pole because it was so close to the shoulder and I ended up into a ditch. I wasn't speeding, it was a single car collision and nobody got hurt. Needless to say the car was a total loss.
A run off the road crash is generally a single vehicle event that results in a large number of injuries and fatalities for the occupants. While this is American data, it is quite likely that our Canadian experience is very similar, meaning that 95% of our run off the road crashes involve some kind of driver error.
An interesting idea from Europe! You can plan your trip to avoid the most dangerous highways and choose to take the ones that are the best at looking after you if a crash does occur. The European Road Safety Atlas shows how to assess your risk by coloring the roads shown in the atlas from green, the most safe to black, the least.
The case of Chang v Alcuaz examines an intersection collision where the drivers approached each other at right angles. Both claim that they were facing a green light when they proceeded into the intersection. It is interesting to see how the judge determines which driver had actually faced a green traffic signal.
Definitely a different video, produced for the Global Road Safety Partnership, uses a character called Steve to demonstrate the hidden dangers on our roads. Worldwide, 1.3 million "Steves" die every year in road incidents, which is the number one cause of death for young people today.
"Speed Kills!" is a popular road safety slogan that we hear often. It's pretty simplistic and when I look around me on the highway I am convinced that drivers either don't believe it or live in a world of denial. Speed alone doesn't kill, but combine it with poor driving skills or a bad decision and it definitely makes a bad situation worse.