Re: , (Our View, Oct. 17)
Before setting up a highway police unit on the Malahat mountain highway, we should ask how the dangerous drivers behave where they live B´ÎÔª¹ÙÍøÍøÖ·“ in fiefdoms like Saanich, Nanaimo, and on the mainland, most refusing to police properly.
Watch the streets anywhere and youB´ÎÔª¹ÙÍøÍøÖ·™ll see most drivers donB´ÎÔª¹ÙÍøÍøÖ·™t slow down in the rain. Many deliberately drive dangerously, at 80 km/h through playground zones and around blind curves on residential streets, not stopping when turning right at a red light nor at stop signs. Others are merely inattentive or sloppy. Much re-education is needed.
The Malahat is much less forgiving of error, but driver mentality is the same, general ignorance about driving physics is the same.
B.C.B´ÎÔª¹ÙÍøÍøÖ·™s Ministry of Transportation has not done much to educate drivers that it is a mountain highway, claiming the expensive vague sign in View Royal does that B´ÎÔª¹ÙÍøÍøÖ·“ despite using clear bright signs elsewhere in the province.
Driver licensing isnB´ÎÔª¹ÙÍøÍøÖ·™t working. The many drivers whose N placard indicates they recently passed a knowledge exam, but donB´ÎÔª¹ÙÍøÍøÖ·™t want to benefit from using what they were taught.
The effective approach is police feet on the street, identifying and directly re-educating drivers. DidnB´ÎÔª¹ÙÍøÍøÖ·™t the continuous campaign of increased enforcement on the Malahat show that last year? I expect it will take a year of increased police presence everywhere before most drivers get the message about proper behaviour on roads.
Keith Sketchley
Saanich