Dear editor,
Tom Beshr correctly points to dangerous driving in school areas, in your Sept. 7 issue, and observes that people seem oblivious to signs dictating no passing.
From my observations of people blowing through the combination of playground and school zones in my neighbourhood, I conclude that some people are not properly scanning their eyes so miss the fluorescent yellow signs, while others are deliberately driving dangerously.
Among the latter are young individuals with novice decals on their vehicles. Those people recently passed driver licence testing, thus I conclude that driver licensing is not the solution.
I believe the only solution is police in their face, repeatedly. That’s policing that cheapskate municipal councils avoid so they can spend money on their pet projects. I judge them negligent — the purpose of government is to protect individuals against the initiation of force, councillors and police boards aren’t doing that.
The value of continuing police presence was shown by an experiment on the Malahat Mountain Highway northwest of Victoria, in the summer of 2011. The accident rate with much additional police presence was dramatically lower than the previous summer.
It takes time to educate drivers on proper behaviour toward other people. Those who are simply sloppy will get a reminder.
But those who deliberately drive dangerously, some having had their driver licence taken away, need a strong lesson. I vote for a night in jail, then two nights, and onward. A jail where they have to work to eat.
PS: An example of failure to scan is a location where a flashing speed-exceeding detection device on the opposite side of the street from a school zone sign had no effect on speed. Only when the device was near the school sign did people heed the combination.
Keith Sketchley,
Saanich
