Every new year brings new restrictions and inconveniences on motor vehicle driving, which make Montreal and Quebec the most overgoverned place around when it comes to road traffic.
Technology has seen accidents and injuries reduced by half over the last twenty years and yet Montreal is still piling on the unnecessary regulations.
A list:
Montreal fails to configure roads to allow for roundabouts, preferring the more dangerous and machine-technology-maintenance-electricity dependent traffic light systems.
Right turns on red lights remain banned while legal everywhere else in North America (except Manhattan). Calls to repeal the ban date back to at least 1939.
Quebec becomes Canada's first province to mandate seat belts (1976).
Ten buck annual feed added to car registrations to fund accident victim hotline (c. 2001)
Winter tires made mandatory (2014). Premier Couillard now wants to extend the period (2017) No other jurisdiction in Canada requires winter tires.
No talking on cell phones or texting while driving (2008 - one year before Ontario).
Quebec becomes first province to force all drivers to use snow tires in winter.
Emissions checks for older vehicles deemed mandatory (c. 2013)
Proliferation of bike paths, bus lanes, extended accordion bus parking spaces, handicapped parking space, resident parking and pregnant women parking (at malls) all combine to deprive motorists of much-needed parking spaces and harm local commerce.
Montreal pressures parking lot owners to shut down their lots and build condos on their properties (c. 2000)
Motorists are to face fines for failing to wipe snow off a car (c. 2012)
Montreal forces motorists to wait longer at red lights by adding pedestrian crossing to allow for diagonal crossings, even in cases of little demand.
Massive numbers of superfluous traffic lights are added to new development areas, such the area adjacent to the MUHC superhospital
Montreal mayor Denis Coderre vows to lower speed limits within the city within two years. (2017)
Quebec passes a law ordering drivers to stay one metre from bikes, and implements new fines for opening a car door while a bicycle is coming (dooring) (2016)
New drivers, who already cannot consume even a drop of alcohol, are forbidden from driving more than three passengers and are banned from driving after midnight. (2017)
Drivers themselves can be blamed for some of these restrictions. Unlike cyclists, who have loudly fought any attempts to force them into helmets, motorists have complied meekly with every new rule.
It's likely merely a matter of time before motorists are forced to wear helmets behind the wheel.
Every new year brings new restrictions and inconveniences on motor vehicle driving, which make Montreal and Quebec the most overgoverned place around when it comes to road traffic.
Pretty much all the rules outlined here are fully justifiable and based on science. So what exactly is your problem? That having no right on a red adds 4 minutes to your trip?
ReplyDeleteI still cannot fathom the recklessness of radio station policy whereby talk show announcers request that their listeners call in and/or send text messages to the station during a live broadcast, thereby brazenly ignoring the fact that many will do so WHILE THEY ARE DRIVING in spite of universal laws against the practice. And yes: hands-free technology is still considered distracted driving.
ReplyDeletePresumably, responsible motorists will ignore the impulse to phone or text while in motion and obey the law by using their device while parked, but how many will actually do this?
Anyone can tell from the background noise behind the voices of most mobile callers that they are NOT safely parked--many of whom even unashamedly ADMIT that they are "in traffic", "on the bridge", etc. What are we to make of this scofflaw attitude?
I once received a sympathetic email response from a former radio station announcer following my enquiry about this very topic, yet clearly management has done nothing about it.
So what would be a reasonable solution? At the very least, radio stations ought to broadcast a PUBLIC SAFETY MESSAGE similar to the disclaimers which routinely follow their sponsors' commercials that offer financial advice and tips regarding travel destinations, for example.
Inevitably, there will be a deadly collision (if it has not already occurred somewhere) where the live, on-air comments of a mobile caller will cut off mid-sentence, after which it will be reported that the aforementioned caller was on his or her cellphone, resulting in injury or death.
Regarding traffic lights in the city:
ReplyDeleteAccording to the Montreal Gazette for February 14, 1930, page 5, article header "By-Laws Include Traffic Lights", that was the year when Montreal began to seriously study and plan for their installation; this presumably as part of the general make-work projects established during the early Depression years for infrastructure such as the underpasses and tunnels very much needed to replace busy railway level crossings.
Why is he complaining of these measures, which improve safety, in particular for pedestrians and cyclists, but also for drivers. I do agree about the roundabouts, but that seems to be a cultural issue. They are generalised in Europe, including the Netherlands, which has far more stringent measures in favour of pedestrians and cyclists.
ReplyDeleteWe need to do more to encourage both public transport and so-called "active" transport (walking and cycling) to fight the harm done by collisions and pollution.