There always seems to be a feeling that things are getting worse; traffic on our roads, and crime in our streets.
The reality is just the opposite. Crime had been on a significant downward trend for decades, and so, too, it seems, have been deaths on Saskatchewan highways.
The headline in the Battlefords News-Optimist caught my eye: “Fewest deaths on Saskatchewan roads since 1954.”
The story detailed how there were 102 deaths on Saskatchewan roads in 2017, down from 125 in 2016, and significantly down from the 10-year average of 145 from 2006 to 2016.
Back in 1974, we hit an all-time high of 306 deaths, and Saskatchewan’s population was a bit smaller then, around a million versus 1.165 million now.
So let’s look at cars, compared from then to now. Conveniently for this purpose, I happen to have a 1968 Buick LeSabre collecting rust, and currently drive 2011 Ford Expedition.
The Buick had a non-collapsible steering wheel. Much of the dashboard was face-crushing steel. The seats had no headrests to counter whiplash. There were no external crush zones. The bumpers were steel and didn’t give way. The gas tank was under the trunk.
It had drum brakes all around, and if you hit ice, you pumped those brakes as best you could. But they did allow you to smoke tires when you felt like it.
Headlights got turned on when it was dark, and only when it was dark.
Lap seatbelts were complemented by some sort of weird attached-to-the-roof shoulder belts I could never figure out, nor ever used. There were zero airbags. It had no external communications in case you were in trouble.
The Ford? Each seat has a headrest. Crush zones are all over. The collapsing steering wheel has an airbag. Indeed, there are more airbags than I can count, including side and rear curtains. The dashboard is not steel, but plastic, protected by those airbags.
The brakes are all disk, antilock brakes. That enables anti-sway and traction control. I couldn’t spin tires if I tried, and I’ve tried. The gas tank is isolated under the centre of the vehicle.
Daytime running lights are standard. The lights are much brighter, and there are fog lights, too. The mirrors auto-dim.
All positions have seatbelts that automatically lock when a certain G-force is encountered. All those seatbelts include comfortable shoulder belts, too.
The vehicle is equipped with 911-assist, whatever that is, but I imagine it’s something like the OnStar that I had in my parked 2004 Buick Rainier. It has GPS navigation and Bluetooth.
Did I mention the Expedition has full-time four by four and automatic four by four modes? And radial tires, as opposed to the original bias-ply tires the LeSabre came with out of the factory?
Perhaps most importantly, it has a backup camera and rearward obstacle sensors.
All of these things are now commonplace on most modern vehicles. Pickup trucks are the biggest sellers these days, and you have to try really hard to find one without most, or all of the safety features I mentioned. And nearly all are four by fours these days. SUVs are almost universally all-wheel drive as well.
Then there’s the other side of the coin. Decades upon decades of cracking down on drinking and driving has not eliminated the problem, but it sure as hell has had an impact. Social acceptance of the practice is at an all-time low, while penalties are at an all-time high.
About one third of the cases I see concluded before Estevan provincial court end up being impaired driving cases. The Estevan police chief, in the February 21 Estevan Mercury, talked about their zero tolerance enforcement.
One person who’s got a few years behind him told me the roads are much better now. I’ll have to take his word for it. But one thing we do have now is the Internet, and with it, regular updates on road conditions. Checking the Highways Hotline before hitting the trail now is a par for the course.
But people have gone beyond that. On Facebook, a group called SE Sask Road Conditions is spectacular in being up-to-date, sometimes minute by minute, in reporting road conditions.
Not sure about the highway to Oungre? Post a question on there and expect a response in short order, often with pictures or video. A little while back I saw road reports on that site and said to hell with it on a planned trip.
All these things are making an impact. Just wait until collision-avoiding radar becomes standard, sharply applying the brakes if something (like a moose or deer or tractor-trailer) suddenly appears in front of you.
Some things are getting better. You just have to appreciate it.
