Kelowna's Bad Drivers and Big Accidents

[Spocky]

What gets me is the severity of damage caused in these primarily in town accidents all you have to do is take a look at the vehicles involved and you know right away excess speed is involved and distracted driving ( texting and yapping) can be attributed to some of them "pure stupidity"

I don't know if this latest string of intown accidents are just a statistical anomaly but it does seem very strange that they occur just as the last flakes melt away. You'd figure that after the horrific January snow we had drivers would be much better off on our current dry roads, but it seems that "pure stupidity" is becoming the operative factor.

I think that ICBC should have people do their road test again every 10 years and get the bad drivers off the roads.

My proposal is once every 5 years, and once every 2 years over 65. And the test has to be a test of real driving skill, not the "do you know the difference between the brake and the accelerator pedal" kindergarten joke of today.

I get how stretched the police are here with all the knuckdragging gangster wannabes but traffic enforcement is just totally ignored it feels like.

Going north into Westbank on 97 there's that "hollow" where the limit drops from 90 to 70 and then 50 at the top of the hill. I have seen RCMP radar there only ONCE in the last two years. When I slow down to 70 at the bottom of the dip, I usually have some speedfreak behind me jump to the next lane to pass me like I was going backwards. I'd build a nicely equipped climate controlled radar enforcement structure at the top of the hill and staff it 24/7 with RCMP. Keep hitting these boy racers with megabuck fines until they either give up or go bankrupt. Heck, I'd even be happy to drop off a dozen Timmy's donuts there every time I went by to thank the officers!

[dsldriver]

I love some of these comments. One that made me giggle was, "I travel at about 10 over the limit." They do call it a LIMIT for a reason, and the signs do say MAXIMUM at the top of them. Maximum being the highest speed you can travel, therefore people going under the speed limit are actually doing it right. Don't get me wrong, I am fine with the ones who do the usual 10 km/h over the limit. They prevent traffic from bunching up. it's the ones doing 85 or 90 on Hwy 33 so they can maximize their texting time at the next red light they hit. I guess the faster they get there, the better. The thing I find most amusing is that if a person does their commute one day driving like a human being, and then the next day driving like they are Mario Andrettis' long lost child, they would find that they only make a difference of about a minute.

The cabbie that was hurt by the moron in the truck. I hope they hang the SOB and take away his license. There is no tolerance for actions like this. Probably will have to go home to his wife and kids and explain to them why he has to take the bus to work for the next year.

[French Castanut]

I've always wondered... the radar things attached to every light in town.. Is the RCMP still using them when they manually give fine to people or do they just keep them as fancy year round christmas decorations?

[Woodenhead]

Too many bluehairs in this town, that's all.

Disagree. It's the eighteen to twenty-something gang that are the worst. And women as much as men. Make that "boys".

heh I was being facetious (hence the smiley in that post)

:popcorn:

I've always wondered... the radar things attached to every light in town.. Is the RCMP still using them when they manually give fine to people or do they just keep them as fancy year round christmas decorations?

haha yeah, they're definitely decoration, nothing more.

[dodgerdodge]

Completely disagree about re tests every few years. That would become a huge money grab for ICBC (the Government) and nothing more. Every day people pass their tests and get to drive but it doesn't stop them becoming bad drivers. Do everything by the book, pay your fee and pass then throw the rule book out of the window and do what you like, thats the way it seems to be and no amount of re tests will stop this.
Certainly make the test more difficult, stop parents teaching their kids bad habits and spend time and money on reminding drivers of the rules. Put up more signs, make the signs more visible, put out adverts in the local media advising people how to negotiate the new roundabouts (remember a huge portion of the population had never used one until they built the 2 or 3 we have) use those big ugly advertising boards on way to the bridge and put up pictures of mangled wrecks and blood stained faces of people involved in DUI or red light runners and back them up with statistics. Make drivers fully aware of what can happen if they mess up!

[Takin it easy !]

I see a couple of more in town roll overs and another vehicle accident that a lady ended up in a field over the weekend !
Looks like dry pavement and clear weather conditions I wonder how many of these misadventures were caused while texting or yapping on cell phones ?

[Relentless]

Flipping a car into the creek on dry pavement, is a new one.
Makes me really wonder what is going on with all the roll-overs when roads are in fine shape.
I wish follow-ups were done, so that we would find out how many accidents were really caused from drivers on cell phones.
Speeding and cell phone use has gotta be 2 main contributing factors, as these 2 can be witnessed anywhere, anytime around here.

[dodgerdodge]

Flipping a car into the creek on dry pavement, is a new one.
Makes me really wonder what is going on with all the roll-overs when roads are in fine shape.
I wish follow-ups were done, so that we would find out how many accidents were really caused from drivers on cell phones.
Speeding and cell phone use has gotta be 2 main contributing factors, as these 2 can be witnessed anywhere, anytime around here.

Completely agree about follow ups. We only ever get the initial few lines on here with a picture and usually no specifics about how or why. We seldom seem to hear what actually happened and what penalties the driver faced.
Maybe posting a picture of the vehicle in question with a slogan above letting people know this is what happens when you text and drive, or drink and drive or whatever.

[motokelowna1]

Since arriving from Australia, i did not realize that i needed to change my very good driving behavior. With break neck speeds on all roads i was told the police will not pull you over unless your speed was 30 k over the limit. I have not yet tried nor will I attempt that record.

The apathy here has changed in the last 6 yrs from when i was here last. Not only the pedestrians the bike riders and the drivers are appalling. I have seen bike riders NO helmets but dark clothing night time bike through a red light across Hwy 97 and not even bat a eye lid. Pedestrians walking without care across roads and with the grace pf GOD hope that my 1 ton truck can stop in 2 feet . People on phones the texting the inability to actually drive *bleep* is going on here .

Now the worst of these was the driver smoking in the car windows wound up tight smoking with his child in the back seat. *bleep* does driver education do here and how do these morons get a licence. Come on people smarten up it really is deplorable.

[Dizzy1]

what the hay does driver education do here and how do these morons get a licence.

There is no driver's education here ... thats part of the problem. They give you a little comic book "study" guide, ask you to do a quick multiple choice test followed by a quick road test and they think you're fit for the road LMAO!