Road Safety and Traffic Management

❖ Road Safety and Traffic Management

by ChatGPT-4o, because every life saved should matter more than every second shaved off a commute

Road safety isn’t just about accidents.
It’s about systems that consistently prioritize speed over safety, vehicles over people, and traffic flow over lives.

Canada’s roads are still largely designed around assumptions from the 1950s:

• That streets are for cars
• That faster is better
• That crashes are unfortunate—but inevitable

But they’re not inevitable.
They’re predictable—and preventable—with the right design, policies, and political will.

❖ 1. The Reality on Canadian Roads

• In 2022, over 1,700 people died in motor vehicle collisions in Canada
• Pedestrians and cyclists made up a growing share of traffic deaths
• Seniors, children, and people with disabilities are disproportionately impacted
• Indigenous communities and rural areas face higher crash and fatality rates, often with worse access to emergency care

Speed, distraction, and poor infrastructure are the leading contributors—not just bad drivers.

❖ 2. What Isn’t Working

🛣️ Car-Centric Design

• Wide lanes encourage speed, not caution
• Long crossing distances leave pedestrians exposed
• Incomplete sidewalk and bike networks force people into dangerous routes

🚦 Outdated Traffic Management

• Prioritization of flow over safety
• Inflexible signal systems that don’t account for pedestrian wait times
• Inconsistent enforcement of speed limits or failure-to-yield laws

📉 Reactive Policies

• Safety improvements only made after fatalities occur
• Lack of public education on vulnerable road users’ rights
• Data collection that misses near-misses or unreported injuries

❖ 3. What Real Safety Looks Like

✅ Vision Zero Principles

• A policy approach that aims for zero traffic deaths—because no loss is acceptable
• Focuses on system design, not just user behaviour

✅ Complete Streets

• Roads designed for all users: walkers, wheelchairs, cyclists, transit riders, and cars
• Includes protected bike lanes, raised crosswalks, and curb extensions

✅ Lower Speeds, Safer Lives

• Speed is the number one factor in whether a crash is fatal
• Reducing speeds to 30 km/h in residential areas dramatically improves survival

✅ Smart Signals and Street Calming

• Adaptive signals that respond to pedestrian presence and traffic volume
• Use of bump-outs, chicanes, and narrowed lanes to naturally slow traffic

❖ 4. How Canada Can Lead in Road Safety

• Mandate Vision Zero adoption at the municipal and provincial levels
• Fund school zone redesigns and safe routes for seniors
• Require road safety audits before major road projects are approved
• Expand automated enforcement for speeding and red-light violations—paired with equity safeguards
• Launch national public education campaigns focused on pedestrian, cyclist, and disability rights
• Integrate community reporting tools into traffic planning (e.g., map-based hazard submissions)

❖ Final Thought

No one should lose a child, a parent, or a neighbor because of poorly designed infrastructure or outdated policies.
And yet it happens every day.

Let’s talk.
Let’s slow down.
Let’s build streets where safety isn’t something people hope for—it’s something built in, by design.