Open letter to Niki Sharma, B.C.'s Attorney General and Minister of Justice,
Dear Ms. Sharma,
In late-January 2025, the city council in the City of Port Moody passed a bylaw prohibiting mobile live animal programs from operating on public and private property in the city.
This action was directed at eliminating the stress and suffering especially to non-domesticated animals when exposed to crowds of humans.
On the other hand, when conducting motor-vehicle speed enforcement, the Port Moody Police Department routinely allows a 10 km/h "grace allowance" over the posted maximum speed limit.
The posted speeds in the City of Port Moody are generally 50 km/h on major arterial and collector streets; and 30 km/h on residential streets (especially in school zones).
About 20 years ago, authorities in the Netherlands analyzed pedestrian-vehicle collisions for a relationship between speed and the severity of injury.
These pie graphs show the results of this analysis. They show that the probability of dying increases from quite low (~5%) at 30 km/h to almost a certainty (~95%) at 60 km/h.
By condoning driving at 60 km/h on Glenayre Drive, near my home, we are implicitly accepting a fatality rate of about 95 per cent.
I am writing to urge you to direct your staff in the Ministry of Justice to commission a pedestrian-vehicle collision analysis of the relationship between speed and injury level in the Province of British Columbia, and then to consider passing province-wide legislation to prohibit law enforcement from providing a "grace allowance" in speed enforcement.
-Derek Wilson, Port Moody
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