General Road and Highway Discussion

[neonjoe]

Shouldn't we also be asking what's wrong with our traffic engineers who design these roads?  I've never been on the road discussed in this article, but I frequently drive on Bingeman Centre drive, and find I very difficult to drive at the 50 limit.  In no way am I justifying 100+ km over the limit, but it feels wrong to be going that slow.  I can only assume this Cambridge road "feels" the same way.

Coke

Yes and yes.

Our regional traffic engineers, at this point, refuse to even acknowledge a problem.

The Shelley Drive ext was actually an MTO project ...

[ijmorlan]

Even ignoring the two drivers doing 100 over, there are three more doing 50 over the limit. On a suburban road. What's wrong with these people?

Shouldn't we also be asking what's wrong with our traffic engineers who design these roads?  I've never been on the road discussed in this article, but I frequently drive on Bingeman Centre drive, and find I very difficult to drive at the 50 limit.  In no way am I justifying 100+ km over the limit, but it feels wrong to be going that slow.  I can only assume this Cambridge road "feels" the same way.

Coke

I don’t think it should even be allowed to have a road designed like that with a 50km/h limit. Either raise the limit or re-design the road so one doesn’t feel like one is walking when driving 50km/h.

In this particular location, I think a good case can be made for 60km/h or even 70km/h; it’s a major road obviously designed to take lots of motor traffic with only a few driveways; and if my idea for linking to Guelph were adopted it would be the primary route to Guelph. In other locations, re-design to make 50km/h or even a lower speed reasonable would be a better approach; for example, Victoria St. just the other side of the tracks could benefit from this treatment, with a view to gradually building a more urban street.

But none of this in any way excuses going 100km/h or even 50km/h or even 30km/h over the limit. It’s a road, not a freeway.

[SammyOES]

Either way, yes, I agree that a permanent irrevocable license cancellation is in order. If he’s caught driving, ever, 10 years in prison, minimum. Longer if there is any whining about it whatsoever. Enough already.

No, I don’t know how to square what I just said with the idea that we should try not to incarcerate people too much.

I get the sentiment but ten years in prison is absolutely too much - even for bypassing a license restriction. Really so is a permanent license cancellation unless there is additional context to be considered. One reason we incarcerate people too much is because it’s the hammer we throw at all problems.

License cancellation measured in years - definitely. Prison sentence measured in months - seems good to me. Permanent driving restrictions like a speed limited car or additional speed/gps tracking - great. Escalating prison sentences / consequences for repeat offences / bypassing restrictions - great.

And so on.

But people make stupid mistakes and poor decisions and really long prison sentences are rarely the answer to the best way society should deal with it. Particularly as our technology advances to the point where we have all sorts of better and more targeted punishments / measures.

[ijmorlan]

Either way, yes, I agree that a permanent irrevocable license cancellation is in order. If he’s caught driving, ever, 10 years in prison, minimum. Longer if there is any whining about it whatsoever. Enough already.

No, I don’t know how to square what I just said with the idea that we should try not to incarcerate people too much.

I get the sentiment but ten years in prison is absolutely too much - even for bypassing a license restriction. Really so is a permanent license cancellation unless there is additional context to be considered.  One reason we incarcerate people too much is because it’s the hammer we throw at all problems.

License cancellation measured in years - definitely.  Prison sentence measured in months - seems good to me.  Permanent driving restrictions like a speed limited car or additional speed/gps tracking - great.  Escalating prison sentences / consequences for repeat offences / bypassing restrictions - great. 

And so on. 

But people make stupid mistakes and poor decisions and really long prison sentences are rarely the answer to the best way society should deal with it.  Particularly as our technology advances to the point where we have all sorts of better and more targeted punishments / measures.

There are some good points here. That being said, if license revocation/suspension is to mean anything, the penalty for violating the suspension has to be severe. On average, most cars aren’t stopped by police; so on average, one can drive without a license (and without insurance or registration, for that matter) indefinitely. Arguably, I’ve been wasting my money these past 30 years on paying my license renewals. So the penalty needs to be pretty significant.

On the other hand, people who drive fine and never get noticed by police aren’t really the problem …

Also, we’re talking about 100km/h over the limit on road that is not a superhighway. That is criminal negligence, even if by chance they happen not to kill anyone today. I consider an extremely long license suspension (rather than years in prison) to be fairly lenient.

Another possibility would be to have a permanent license suspension, but suspend the suspension after a period of time. Then if they’re caught violating again, un-suspend the suspension. In other words, if they serve a shorter suspension without problem, they can start driving again; but if they prove by their actions that they haven’t learned their lesson, they go back to the more severe punishment.

Society is entitled to force some offenders to change their views and way of life or be locked up for the safety of the rest of us.

Part of the issue is that I don’t think we deal with repeat offenders well at all. Do we really believe the 100km/h over person only did that this one time? What you say really only makes sense if that is the case. If they’re out there every weekend doing this, then they need to be subject to the control of the justice system until they change who they are in a fairly fundamental way. But I see you’re on-board with escalating penalties, so maybe we’re not really that far apart.

[SammyOES]

I hear you on the probability of getting caught.  We’re also very much a results oriented culture when it comes to punishments (like speeding, drunk driving, many other reckless activities).  Basically a sentence is a light slap on the wrist/fine if you’re “lucky” and avoid the bad outcomes of a reckless activity and you get massive jail sentences if you’re “unlucky” and cause the bad outcome.  I’m very much in favour of evening that out more - punish more on expected negative value of the activity and less on actual result (this obviously still needs to be a factor).  It’s also why I’m in favour of things like photo radar or punishments like speed limiting/gps tracking - if we increase the odds of catching people we don’t need as severe consequences for this few people we do catch.  Particularly because I’m not sure many people even think of the “EV” of reckless driving rather than just think they won’t get caught at all.

So for ridiculous speeding my answer would be something like one month jail sentence on first offence, 6 month license suspension, course on impacts of dangerous driving, and maybe a technological limitation on any car you drive.  Absolutely escalate from there.

I know one person in high school (before street racing laws) that was caught doing 160+ in an 80.  They got off light (because in many parts of the country being from a privileged background will do that for you) but honestly society is much better for it.  They were legitimately terrified of what could have happened (lost job, unable to go to school far away, money, etc.) and never did anything like that again.  (Edit: In case it wasn’t clear, I do actually think many of these people caught in first offence will legitimately change. I think they think they won’t get caught and they won’t cause an accident. And getting caught and facing real penalties changes their perspective. I’d be interested to see data though.)

I think of this often because too often we look at the inequity in the justice system and point to harder punishments to make things equal.  But it sure would be nice if we could show leniency to people of all backgrounds that make these types of mistakes (even really dumb ones like this) because society (I think) would generally be much better for it. (Obligatory note that not all dumb mistakes are created equal - when your dumb mistake knowingly hurts someone that’s a different situation).

Sorry, this was a tangent. 

[timio]

The speed camera on Westmount south of Ottawa is active. As I was getting in and out of my car at FreshCo last night, it went off at least 4 times. Looks to be capturing both directions of travel based on how the cars were traveling past when it went off.

[Bob_McBob]

The speed camera on Westmount south of Ottawa is active. As I was getting in and out of my car at FreshCo last night, it went off at least 4 times. Looks to be capturing both directions of travel based on how the cars were traveling past when it went off.

Good to know. I drove past the one on Keats Way last night and it's still an empty shell on a pole.

[danbrotherston]

The speed camera on Westmount south of Ottawa is active. As I was getting in and out of my car at FreshCo last night, it went off at least 4 times. Looks to be capturing both directions of travel based on how the cars were traveling past when it went off.

Good to know. I drove past the one on Keats Way last night and it's still an empty shell on a pole.

Arent they going to be rotated anyway? I was never totally clear on that. All that I was certain of was that our laws were fucking stupid and basically bending over backwards to not offend sociopathic drivers.

[Bob_McBob]

Arent they going to be rotated anyway? I was never totally clear on that. All that I was certain of was that our laws were fucking stupid and basically bending over backwards to not offend sociopathic drivers.

From my understanding, these are all permanent installations, and every location will have its own camera. They are supposed to be installing another 8 at various other schools in September. Apparently the reason the original 8 cameras weren't installed in the spring was shipping delays, but they certainly dragged their heels even getting the posts set up.

[ac3r]

Going to drop this link in here because there is no general rail transport thread. Amtrack is proposing a Chicago > Detroit > Windsor > London > Brantford > Toronto (lots of other cities, but these are the most significant ones) rail corridor. I think it would make more sense to - after going through London - to go up to St. Mary's, Stratford, Waterloo Region, Guelph, Brampton, Mississauga and Terminate in Toronto. We're a much more relevant city that London or Brantford. Both options would utilize CN tracks, but I guess going north east out of London would add...probably another hour to an estimated 10+ hour trip.

I highly doubt either routes would happen because of the glacial pace we give to passenger rail transportation, but it would be great to get as far as Chicago on a train from Waterloo Region. Would be nice if we invested in high speed rail! Sadly, I'd be more likely to win 10 trillion dollars in the lottery than that ever happening in my lifetime.

More info here: https://www.amtrakconnectsus.com/maps/ch...t-toronto/

[panamaniac]

The long-standing contest of the two lines. I wonder whether we won’t eventually see GO out to Stratford or St Mary’s with Via focussed on the main line? No HFR for Kitchener.

[jamincan]

The rumour is that GO will be starting train service to London in October, though I remain skeptical.

Re: Amtrak going via Brantford, keep in mind that it would likely stop at Aldershot, which is effectively a Hamilton stop.

[danbrotherston]

AFAIK trains do not take the KW route because the KW line is not a main route, it isn't as well maintained, has much lower limits, etc. etc.

This has been a problem since at least the 1950s when there was a newspaper article that mentioned a major obstacle for KW was limited train service.

At this point, we've had 70 years, Kitchener should just buy the damn railway and run our own damn service.

[ac3r]

The rumour is that GO will be starting train service to London in October, though I remain skeptical.

Where have you heard that? Someone spotted a GO train in London a few days ago...maybe that is the explanation. It seems far fetched though. Like, why London? It's so far away from Toronto and the commute would take forever.

These are not my videos, but you can see it going through here:

https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipPr...dzQUxRM29n
https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipPg...AzdVhpUXN3

[jamincan]

It's not just been one train, they've been running test trains almost daily now apparently. It's also not out of the blue - the Ontario government announced they were looking to introduce train service to London two years ago.

The problem, as I see it, is that some of the ground work needed to make it work is still missing. If the train is to leave at a reasonable time in the morning, it would either have to deadhead there from Kitchener (plausible, but wasteful), or they would need to install wayside equipment in London for overnight power. I'm not sure there is even track space to overnight in London right now. The track condition west of Kitchener is also terrible, so service will be very slow. It would easily be the longest train journey on GO if it happens.