Grant: Operating Grant: Population Health Intervention Research

Many drivers exceed the posted speed limit and most do not fully appreciate the risks associated with higher speed travel. Groups opposing speed control push for increased speed limits and reduced speed enforcement. Most experts believe that higher speed limits are dangerous, but some believe that increased speed limits on selected highways may actually make travel safer. On July 2, 2014, the BC government increased speed limits on 9% of BC's paved highways. The maximum speed in BC was increased to 120 kph - the highest in Canada. They said that their goal was to make roads safer. We propose a comprehensive evaluation of BC's new speed limits. We will study collisions, ambulance calls for road trauma, injuries, and fatalities occurring on the affected road segments. We will account for downward trends in the road trauma rate and will compare BC's record with records from Alberta and Washington state. We will also study the effects of the speed limit changes on traffic speed. Our evaluation will consider the possible effects of speed spillover (where increased speed limits on a major road result in increased travel speed on nearby roads). We will also study the effect of increased speed limits on winter road trauma. Our main objective is to determine how the July 2014 speed limit changes in BC affected the number of motor vehicle crashes on the highway segments where the speed limit was increased. Other provinces may follow BC's lead and increase their speed limits. Therefore, it is very important that the speed limit changes in BC be thoroughly studied and that lawmakers and the public know the outcome. Our group works closely with lawmakers and we will ensure that they know our findings and use them to help set safe speed limits. Our study will use sophisticated methods to analyze recent Canadian data in order to provide findings that will be convincing for road safety lawmakers and for the Canadian public.