In defence of John van Dongen and a discussion on speeding
Posted April 27, 2009 by Sacha Peter - Link
Category: Analysis, BC Liberals
Comments (9)
The NDP are making full use of the resignation of John van Dongen’s position as Solicitor General and Minister of Public Safety today; they will have all of Monday to make as much as they can about this before it will die Tuesday and beyond. If the NDP try pushing it for longer, they will not stand to politically profit as much.
The reaction from the third parties, however, have been less than coherent. In particular, there was a special interest group against street racing that chided van Dongen for his behaviour, especially when they quoted van Dongen as saying (paraphrasing from memory) “he would do everything to stop speeders on our streets”.
The fact is that van Dongen wasn’t caught street racing; he was caught speeding.
Discussion on Speeding
It is a fact that a great deal of automobile injuries are caused by fast-moving vehicles. However, there is a huge difference between going 141km/h on the stretch of Highway 1 from Langley to Hope, and going down Knight Street at 91km/h; or down Front Street in New Westminster at 71km/h; the three are equivalently “dangerous driving” under the law (Section 148 of the Motor Vehicle Act), but one is inherently more safe than the others.
A perfect law would define “dangerous driving” as such, and let the police target such drivers. Unfortunately, the measurement of “dangerous” is not easy to nail down in court, and because of this ambiguity, politicians decided to target speed as a proxy for dangerous driving. Speed is measurable, and such measurement can be easily submitted as evidence in court, once it is proven that the speed limit was violated.
Ever since the history of driving speeding has always contributed to injuries; however, bad driver decisions (including high speed) are what inevitably cause accidents, not solely speed itself.
One of the first things the BC Liberal government did in 2001 was removing photo radar; this was a political decision, but it also was smart public policy in that it effectively amounted on a tax on unobservant (and usually non-local) drivers where the photo radar van was usually parked, and it was very difficult to manipulate statistics to “prove” that photo radar saved lives (which it did not). The government is to be commended on sticking to its guns with this decision, and not falling into the trap of other jurisdictions of letting photo radar becoming a source of revenue.
Advocates of strict speed measures state that removal of speed limits would cause more fatalities; contrary to this belief, the state of Montana in the past removed all speed limits on highways between 1995 to 1999, and discovered that fatalities did not increase during this time period. It turns out that, not surprisingly, people drive at speeds they feel comfortable with.
Only when there is an artificial enforcement of speed that you have two tiers of traffic appearing – people that want to drive at the ‘natural speed’ that is safe for the road, and another tier of people that want to drive at the ‘legal’ speed. Having all drivers on the road that drive at 10km/h over the speed limit is much safer than having half the drivers driving at the legal speed limit, and the other half driving 10km/h over.
Speeding also consumes an amount of police resources which could be better allocated to other divisions of traffic safety (e.g. truck maintenance inspections). Speeding also consumes a huge amount of court resources.
Finally, the government’s own report (Ministry of Transportation) from Spring 2003, Review and Analysis of Posted Speed Limits and Speed Limit Setting Practices in British Columbia, concluded that the speed limits in a lot of areas of BC (mainly rural) should be increased. The government took no further action with respect to this report.
If anything is to be learned from this incident, it is that after the election, the province should take a hard look at Section 146 of the Motor Vehicle Act, and consider delegating this down to municipalities to enforce within municipal boundaries, and let the municipalities decide whether they want to consume their police resources enforcing speeding.
Yeah, that BC MoT study from 2003 was prepared by a Michigan traffic engineer who is highly regarded throughout North America.
Basically, the report recommends a speed limit increase of 10 km/hr on all Metro Vancouver freeways as well as interior freeways, among other corridors.
The reason: Most of the highways already have a design speed of up to 140km/hr, (with much built in redundancy).
And the 95th percentile already travels at 10 – 15 km/hr above the posted limit – the “operating speed”.
Hwy 1 through the Fraser Valley has a posted limit of 100 km/hr, yet the operating speed is 120 km/hr in the passing lane.
The NDP government increased the speed limit by up to 20 km/hr on thousands of km of highways during the late 1990’s. One such highway is Hwy 3 from Princeton to the Okanagan Valley. An increase from 80 km/hr to 100 km/hr for most of the route. Operating speed is ~100/110 km/hr.
As for an excessive speeding ticket, one need only look to the Hwy 99 approach to the Oak St. Bridge. Posted speed limit of 90 km/hr, operating speed of 100-110 km/hr and all of a sudden the 60 km/hr zone kicks in. Bingo, one can get an excessive speeding ticket in that zone. The Queen’s cowboys frequently station themselves in that location.
And yes, travelling at either operating speed or design speed on a well-designed freeway is much different than “speed-racing” or dangerous driving on the municipal street system with a posted limit of 50 km/hour with the inherent different design standards.
And yes van Dongen should have stepped down on Friday. The optics just didn’t look good both politically and professionally.
I think an agonizingly detailed discussion of the merits of various posted speed limits and how unfair they are kind of misses the point. van Dongen is the second Solicitor General in the last two years that has resigned for doing or ( in John Les’ case ) *allegedly* doing exactly the sort of thing a Solicitor General is supposed to be helping curb. Public officials should adhere to the rule of law, regardless of anything else and diving into this minutae simply distracts from that.
I think it is incredibly poor judgement on the part of van Dongen to speed while holding public office, let alone the as the Solicitor General. H eloses all credibility saying one thing to the public and then doing another.
I guess this is why they were against photo-radar.
Mr. van Dongen gets no credit from me. This man gets a 4 month suspension, but what’s missing is the fact that before the suspension kicks in, you get several warnings. He was busted for two excessive speeding tickets and seven regular speeding tickets. He’s got a lead foot and is probably upset more at the fact that he was outed by the media than his inability to obey traffic laws.
So far we have Mr.van Dongen and his lead foot, Laura Mcdirmid who has 33 traffic infractions, another young candidate who was arrested for drinking and driving (but pleaded out for a lesser charge and only a $200 fine) and a candidate who spouts off some hateful anti-gay comments…can you imagine these misfits in government? ..again?
I mean, the public forgave the premier’s DUI conviction in Hawaii, but it seems that ignoring the laws and the consequences is more a common practice of BC Liberals than not.
Those who remember the holy outrage that the BC Liberals had at Moe Sihota and demanded his head for a handful of speeding tickets when he was minister of ICBC – and they got it.
Now that the shoe is on the other foot and the premiers party is in power and his MLA’s and candidates are acting like the laws don’t apply to themselves, its time for a good helping of humble pie.
Can you imagine if this was all reversed and it was the NDP still in power and it was their MLA’s acting like this? Of course the BC Liberals would be looking for blood. The hypocracy isn’t just from the BC Liberals getting caught doing dumb things, its their defenders somehow defending these actions. Stupidity isn’t reserved for one political party or another.
To claim that speeding at 41 km/hr over the limit at night–in fact, probably a lot more, given the margin of error that prosecutors typically use–is not ’street racing’ is an incredible stretch.
Van Dongen–and Peter–are extremely lucky that he didn’t wipe out a family of five going to church. For that degree of speeding, on so many counts, van Dongen should be in jail.
He easily could have caused the deaths of several people.
And as for this nonsense about van Dongen having reconsidered over the weekend–what crap. This is Martyn Brown of the premier’s office forcing out this embarrassment of a former minister.
Shameful lying, on all counts.
Sadly, this site, which has previously had some good information, is turning into a site for Liberal apologists.
Have you registered with Elections BC?
Fred Smith; this is a big straw man argument, I was not defending street racing in any way.
If you believe this site is for Liberal apologists, you are not being forced to read anything here.
This site does not provide election advertising per Section 228 of the act, thus no registration required.
I used to speed all the time when I had a car. 120kph down rural highways, 160kph down the freeway. Of course when I came to a turn or was about to crest a hill, I’d hit the breaks, often ending up below the limit. This as opposed to, for example, my grandpappie, who drives 10 above the limit, rain or shine, hill or curve, freeway or back alley. In short there is smart speeding (I’ve never been pulled over once by a cop) and not so smart speeding (my grandpappie has been dozens of times – all for speeding alone)
While I don’t condone speeding or suggest others do it (I ended up throwing my car into the ditch going 20 above the limit with the help of some black ice) I do say that there is more to it than “OMG he was 1km above the limit! Lock him up!”
Going 10 above all day every day on your way to timmies, and going 60 above one day when you are rushing to your wife in the hospital are two very different things.
Sacha,
While your argument about speeding enforcement as a public policy matter is well reasoned there is one thing you didn’t mention: GHG emissions. If you’ll recall, in the 1970’s, the US federal government implemented the national 55 MPH speed limit in an effort to reduce fuel consumption. Remember Jimmy Carter in his cardigan, solar panels on the White House roof, the Pinto….. I’d be curious as to how one would square the circle of on the one hand supporting Carbon Taxes aimed at reducing fossil fuel consumption, and the other hand calling for a broader increase in speed limits that in theory would increase fuel consumption. If government is offering financial incentives to buy hybrids or smart cars, how could it then justify increasing speed limits and, by extension, higher discretionary fuel consumption?
Fred Smith – do you even know what street racing is? There is a distinct difference between excessive speeding and street racing. There is nothing to “stretch”.
Also, you comment about a family of five going to church is simply ridiculous. If you’re going to use hypothetical examples to make a simple case of speeding seem worse than it is, I would suggest one of the following:
– A family of twelve on their way to an Earth Day rally
– A boy scout troop assisting a group of elderly ladies across a busy intersection
– A rare spirit bear and her cub desperately seeking food after a long, cold winter