Highway 401 toronto-windsor, 80% of drivers are "law-breakers"

D

Dubweiser

New member
So what's the problem, the drivers or the absurdly low speed limits?

CBC said:
Every day, hundreds of thousands of cars travel on Canada's busiest highway, the 401 that runs from Windsor to the Quebec border. And at one spot, over 80 per cent of them were going at illegal speeds.

Ontario has some of the slowest highway speed limits in the world, but few people are actually obeying them, data from a CBC Marketplace investigation reveals.

Over the course of a single day at one location Marketplace monitored, dozens of cars were barrelling along at speeds so dangerous that the drivers would immediately face licence suspension if caught.

Out of 45,133 cars tracked near Toronto, only 17 per cent were driving at or below the speed limit.

"If you have that percentage and those numbers driving in excess there's something very wrong" with the speed limit, says Martin Parker, a traffic engineer who regularly consults on highway speed limits in North America.

"Most of us try to obey the law. It's just simply when we find the law is not appropriate for the conditions that it gets violated, and obviously here it gets violated on a daily basis."

To find out how effective current speed limits are, Marketplace tracked drivers on the Macdonald–Cartier Freeway, better known as the 401, with test methods used by the Ontario Ministry of Transportation.

Marketplace collected speed data for three days near Oshawa and Bowmanville, just east of Toronto.

Looking at data from a single day — Tuesday, Sept. 1 — at eastbound traffic near Bowmanville, provides an interesting picture of what daily drivers face.

On this day, this location was free of serious accidents, so the data gives a clear picture of how drivers behave when traffic is moving under normal conditions.

Of the 83 per cent of drivers who were speeding, many were not even close to the speed limit of 100 km/h. Almost 10,000 cars, 22 per cent of all the drivers on the road that day, were travelling at least 20 km/h above the limit.

Marketplace also found that 33 drivers were going at dangerously fast speeds: at least 150 km/h.

If the rules were enforced, these drivers would have their cars impounded by police. Seven cars were travelling at 160 km/h or faster.

In Ontario, drivers going more than 50 km/h above the speed limit immediately lose their car and licence for seven days, and are subject to a fine of up to $10,000.

"The risk of a fatality or serious injury is almost five times greater for vehicles crashing at 50 km/h or more above the posted limit on a highway with a posted limit of 100 km/h," says the website for the Ontario Ministry of Transportation.

While the period between 3 and 4 p.m. was the busiest time on the road, with the most cars competing for space, according to the data, drivers were more likely to speed later in the day.

Between 6 and 8 p.m., one-third of all drivers were doing at least 120 km/h.

Experts agree that the faster a car is going, the more dangerous accidents can be.
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We all know what the problem is, including the lawmakers and police officers. But the system is in place to make money, not to make things safer. And when they catch people, they advertise how many "dangerous drivers" were caught, in the name of safety.

It's pretty transparent and no one is dumb enough to be blinded by these "Opération Frein" headlines...
 
As I drove to toronto last week with my brother , I was amazed how fast traffic was , I was on cruise control @ 125km/h and being past by as if I was not moving
 
Speed limits are way too low.
It's all about da moneyyyyyy

Safety has become secondary.
 
2015-06-25-13-03-02_speeding_4.jpg

too-fast.jpg
 
Confirmé ici! 401 le monde roulent en moyenne 130 km/h sans farces... et à Toronto bah j'ai jamais pogné le traffic à part sur un un boulevard où qu'il y avait un petit pont pas loin de lakeshore... j'aime mieux les routes làbas en tout cas !
 
philippeng said:
Confirmé ici! 401 le monde roulent en moyenne 130 km/h sans farces... et à Toronto bah j'ai jamais pogné le traffic à part sur un un boulevard où qu'il y avait un petit pont pas loin de lakeshore... j'aime mieux les routes làbas en tout cas !
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C'est le climat! :laugh: Ça fait juste 2 ans de suite que les grands lacs gèle à 100% *blah*<- Gov't du Québec! :squintfin
 
philippeng said:
Confirmé ici! 401 le monde roulent en moyenne 130 km/h sans farces... et à Toronto bah j'ai jamais pogné le traffic à part sur un un boulevard où qu'il y avait un petit pont pas loin de lakeshore... j'aime mieux les routes làbas en tout cas !
Click to expand...

Ya ok... T'as dû rouler à 4am un dimanche matin d'une fin de semaine de 3 jours...
 
Apate said:
As I drove to toronto last week with my brother , I was amazed how fast traffic was , I was on cruise control @ 125km/h and being past by as if I was not moving
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Quand je roule sur une autouroute québécoise je roule "sul cruise" à 120 km/h. Pas un km de plus et à date je n'ai jamais pogné de ticket sur l'autoroute en n'excédant pas cette vitesse. Lorsque je roule sur la 417/401 ou n'importe quelle autre autoroute ontarienne, je met mon cruise à 127-128 km/h et je n'ai jamais eu de problème pour le moment.

J'avais déjà fait un ride along avec un policier de l'OPP et lorsqu'il faisait du radar sur la 417, il n'arrêtait rien en bas de 130 km/h. 130 et plus = ticket! Je ne dit pas qu'ils sont tous comme ça, mais je crois que sa donne une bonne indication de la tolérance de l'OPP sur les autoroutes.
 
Thats what I love about new brunswick, its 110 km/h speed limit is great, and seeing how most of quebec is also largly unpopulated I don't understand why we cant have it here too.
It doesnt seem like much 10km/h but when doing a road trip it means you're not always paranoid you can just relax and roll at 130.
 
J'ai toujours dits que ou que c'est vraiment campagne et ouvert, les limites devrait être à 130km/hr minimum. Style Montreal-Toronto, Montreal-Ottawa et Montreal-Québec etc. Pour moi rouler inférieur de 118km/hr = plate. Quand c'est plate, plus de chance de tomber endormis. Au dessus de 118km/hr, tu es sur le radar car tes yeux n'arrête pas de scanner l'horizon pour les radars! ;)
 
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