Starting Wednesday, the speed limit on sections of the Coquihalla highway in British Columbia was raised to 120 kilometres an hour and it may have left some in Alberta wondering if the change could come to some of the province’s busiest highways.
The B.C. government said the change operates on the theory that making the speed limit closer to what motorists are actually driving, reduces the speed difference between the slowest and the fastest vehicles on the road.
RCMP said such a change in Alberta isn’t recommended, saying the Queen Elizabeth 2 Highway specifically is too busy to absorb higher limits – and the damage risk is greater at much higher speeds.
“If the speed limit is 120, and people think now they can do 130, and they have a crash, then the damage would be much more severe than it would have been at 100 or 110,” RCMP Supt. Howard Eaton said.
An injury control analyst echoed RCMP, and said the infrastructure to handle such a change is not in place.
“We’re pretty behind on road infrastructure in Alberta,” Dr. Don Voaklander with the Alberta Centre for Injury Control said. “If you look at Europe, where they have autobahns and very high speed roads, they have three or four lanes with one dedicated to motorhomes and transport trucks and stuff.
“We don’t have that here.”
With files from David Ewasuk
