Late last month the driving public got reacquainted with the nasty underbelly of travel on the Sea to Sky Highway.
After a snow storm, that thoroughfare and adjoining acreage was reduced to a jumble of disabled vehicles and disoriented drivers.
The headline on the Global News website cut to the chase: “Chaos on the Sea to Sky, as winter storm causes accidents, delays.” One commenter disagreed. He wrote, “Let’s be real honest here. Your headline is not only sensationalizing, it is 100 per cent incorrect. It is impossible for a winter storm to actually cause accidents. Accidents are caused by people not driving to the road and weather conditions.”
That being said, what actually triggered the mayhem? Was it the storm, the road or the drivers?
Global News reporter Aaron McArthur got an up close look at the lay of the land. Between Britannia and Squamish he said “the road was a disaster.” Tow truck drivers were “frustrated at everyone’s lack of preparation.” The section between Alice Lake and the Culliton Canyon was “a parking lot for much of the afternoon,” he told an evening news audience. It was “littered with cars and trucks, drivers caught unprepared for the conditions… truck drivers forced to chain up, or spin out,” he said.
The safety advisory signage all along the highway from Horseshoe Bay to Whistler is pretty clear. It states that private vehicles must use winter tires and commercial rigs must be equipped with tire chains. Unfortunately, that warning means sweet diddly squat for many drivers. The variable speed signs are in a similar league. They have been reduced to a waste of wattage and light bulbs for too many people who drive at whatever speed they figure they can get away with. As it stands, those high priced indicators are simply a convenient Ministry of Transportation face saving exercise launched after it was revealed accidents increased in many areas where speed limits were raised three years ago.
Unfortunately, drivers who adhere to the lower speed advisory on sections of the highway with no passing lane risk getting tail-gated by a convoy of hot-to-trot folks behind them.
The electronic speed advisory signs are in the same class as the frequently disregarded “Don’t be a statistic, use road sense” signage posted by ICBC. Without consistent and widespread enforcement, that advice is simply window dressing. And the consequences are costly for the cash strapped insurance provider, policy holders and victims of the resulting highway mayhem.
The lesson here is clear and it harkens back to a classic Psych 101 axiom: “Behaviour that is ignored is thereby condoned.” Of course, nobody wants to see more cops on the road issuing tickets. Then again who looks forward to getting their prized F-150 pickup, or Lexus, or whatever vehicle they’re driving, totaled? And who wants to end up hooked up to IV paraphernalia in the hospital, or worse, like we saw with the terrible accident last week?
