I read in your paper recently, how a resident of Whiffen Spitt rd was concerned about speeding in their neighborhood. Unfortunately speeding is rampant everywhere. Just try and do 60 km from Sooke to Langford and you get 40 cars piled up behind you. Since they installed paved shoulders on Sooke road, people use them as speed corners. Traffic jams are not the result of people doing the speed limit, but rather by those speeding. If we all did the speed limit, you wouldn’t catch the car in front, would you? Answer this, If no where in Canada, the speed limit is greater than 110 km, why do manufacturers of cars make them go faster? Should the government enforce regulation to govern cars so that they can only do 110km maximum? Some trucking companies do this, as I have worked for one.
People would rather drive around someone turning left, rather than wait 20 seconds (which is illegal) as they can’t seem to locate their brakes. Widening Sooke Road would not solve the problem, but add to it. In a perfect world we would all do the speed limit and congestion wouldn’t be a problem. I have been passed on the four-lane into Langford by people doing in excess of 120km/hr and this is at 5 a.m. Is the speed limit different at night? On Grant Road the speed limit is 40km and I have also been passed here as well, by people who live in the area.
As a professional driver, I am obligated to follow the rules of the road and insure the safety of everyone on my bus. I am constantly in awe at the negligence of drivers who drive into oncoming traffic, just to get pass the bus. This is because they don’t recognize or scan ahead what is going on. They are not present while they are driving. They are always 10 minutes down the road, at home making dinner or getting shopping done. They are never where they should be at, and that is behind the wheel, paying attention. When you see a bus ahead, stopped, just what exactly are you thinking? I know, step on the gas to get pass, when it should be to cover the brake to allow the bus back out into traffic to carry on with his/her job.
As for everything else, such as headlights, or tail lights being out, and not signaling, we shall leave for another time.
Andrew Ferguson
Sooke