Speed Kills

That's what we've always been told isn't it? Speed kills. I've always assumed that the reason we have speed limits is because speeds over those limits are dangerous. That's not necessarily so, according to at least one Provincial Court Judge in Alberta. Last week a 17 year old driver was acquitted of two criminal offence counts of "dangerous driving causing death" after an accident in which he sped up to 143 km/h (the normal highway speed limit is 100 km/h) to pass another vehicle.

The driver sped up to pass a pickup truck. When the truck began to change lanes the boy swerved right, then jerked the wheel to the left in an "instinctive correction". The car skidded across the highway and became airborne before hitting the ditch and rolling. His two passengers, a fifteen year old girl and a sixteen year old boy, were both killed. The driver sustained minor injuries. All of the occupants were wearing seat belts and alcohol was not a factor.

The judge said that to convict the driver of dangerous driving, she would have to be satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that his conduct "amounted to a marked departure from the standard of care a reasonable person would observe in the same situation. The death alone is not conclusive proof of dangerous driving. The driving is not to be measured against the benefit of hindsight."

Again, I ask, is not the fact that we have speed limits enough to release us from the need to use hindsight to determine that speeding is dangerous? Haven't experts already determined what speed is safe and what speeds are unsafe on any given stretch of highway? If the answer to these two questions is no, then speed limits are simply an opportunity for governments to generate revenue from fines. If the answer is yes then this young man should have known that the speed at which he was driving had the potential to be dangerous and he should have been convicted.