Re: Driving toward injury-free roadways

In a recent editorial, Dr Schwandt described the importance of speed limits in reducing injuries and deaths (and health care costs) from motor vehicle crashes [BCMJ 2024;66:146]. Physicians can and should be advocating for safer transportation. A suitable first step is broadcasting how unsafe our roads currently are.

Look at ICBC’s map of pedestrians (not cyclists) who made an injury claim after being hit by drivers in the last 5 years.[1] Crashes involving cyclists are also widespread. A study in Vancouver concluded that cyclists had the right-of-way in about 90% of crashes.[2] We know motor vehicle crashes remain a leading cause of unintentional injuries and fatalities in BC.

Who is responsible to push for more proven preventive measures to be implemented? No level of government has a strong incentive to discuss the number of people injured on our roads. The public sees crashes as sporadic “accidents” and keeping traffic moving as the priority.

Doctors who treat crash survivors are uniquely positioned to speak to the prevalence of severe crashes and the huge unnecessary cost and burden they place on the health care system. Physician advocacy for seatbelt laws was effective in the past.

Pedestrians and cyclists are significantly more likely to survive a collision with a vehicle traveling at 30 km/hour than a vehicle traveling 50 km/hour. Transportation safety experts have called for speed reduction in BC for decades. Reducing residential area speed limits was recommended by Vancouver City Council in 1997, but it still hasn’t happened.

Astonishingly, in response to a repeat of a 1999 request by the City of Vancouver and the Union of BC Municipalities asking the provincial government to allow municipalities to implement blanket speed zones in residential areas (without onerous and costly signage requirements),[3] the BC Ministry of Transportation eventually responded in 2003, saying it had “previously investigated a [Union of BC Municipalities] request for blanket speed zones and determined they were not feasible for legal, technical and safety reasons.”[4] In 2006, the ministry affirmed its position that reducing injuries and deaths by lowering speed limits wasn’t important enough to justify the work of changing the Motor Vehicle Act.[5]

Finally, after years of negotiation with the ministry, a few BC municipalities have been able to designate neighborhood slow zones. Vancouver’s first slow zone appeared in 2021. Although a few bikeways have recently had 30 km/hour signs put up, the speed limit on most city roads remains 50 km/hour. Safer streets require stronger advocacy at both the municipal and provincial levels.

Let’s join Dr Schwandt and spread the word at work, at home, and politically at all levels. Safer roads are both necessary and achievable.
—Jan MacPhail, MD, MSc (Epidemiology)
Vancouver

This letter was submitted in response to “Driving toward injury-free roadways.”

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References

1.    Insurance Corporation of British Columbia. Crashes involving pedestrians—2019 to 2023. Accessed 22 July 2024. https://public.tableau.com/app/profile/icbc/viz/BC-CrashesinvolvingPedestrians-/PedestriansDashboard.

2.    City of Vancouver. Cycling safety study. 15 January 2015. Accessed 22 July 2024. https://Vancouver.ca/files/cov/cycling-safety-study-final-report.pdf.

3.    City of Vancouver City Clerk’s Office. Memorandum: UBCM resolutions. 8 June 1999. Accessed 22 July 2024. https://council.vancouver.ca/previous_years/990622/comm1.htm.

4.    Government of British Columbia. Provincial response to the resolutions of the 2003 Union of British Columbia Municipalities Convention. 2004. Accessed 22 July 2024. www.ubcm.ca/sites/default/files/2021-07/Provincial%20Resolution%20responses%202003.pdf.

5.    Union of BC Municipalities. Enabling municipalities to create blanket speed zones. 2016. Accessed 22 July 2024. www.ubcm.ca/convention-resolutions/resolutions/resolutions-database/enabling-municipalities-create-blanket.