Excessive speeding - it's out of control.
Sure, people go a little over the speed limit and that's not good. Speed limits are there for a reason.
I'm talking about excessive speeding -40, 50 60 km/h over the speed limit - this is reckless and dangerous.
The Burnaby RCMP traffic enforcement unit has recently set up some speed traps on Marine Way, just east of Boundary road, where the speed limit drops from 70 km/h to 50 km/h.
On Saturday night, it didn’t take long to catch three drivers and impound their speeding chariots of fire. According to Burnaby RCMP, three excessive speeders were caught in a matter of minutes. As the officer wrapped up one, another came blazing by.
Rinse and repeat.
Drivers were nailed doing 98, 102 and 136 km/h. That means a $368 ticket and losing your vehicle for seven days for the first two drivers.
For the maniac clocked at 136 km/h, that means a $483 ticket and losing their vehicle for a week. Doing 136 is excessive even for a highway. Seriously, this driver is frightening.
Just because it's night and the traffic might be a little lighter on Burnaby roads doesn't mean you get to play Dom in the Fast and the Furious.
But it's not just at night. On Monday morning, Burnaby RCMP went to the same exact spot and nailed a driver in daylight doing 96 in this 50 km/h zone, which got their vehicle impounded and the gift of a $368 ticket.
This comes on the heels of another jerk caught doing 105 km/h in a 50 km/h zone on Friday in Burnaby.
This is what I wrote about that incident: “I wish the driver could lose their vehicle for a longer period, or have to take some sort of remedial driving course. Or, maybe, they should be forced (pun intended) to meet with the family of someone who was killed by a person driving at excessive speeds. Perhaps hearing their story would have an impact on the driver who thinks it’s OK to race down residential streets. It’s called restorative justice and I think it could be effective for traffic enforcement.”
I stand by that statement. People are dying on our roads and we need to do more to stop this. I wrote about 10 people dying on Burnaby roads this year – I don’t want to have to do the same thing in 2020.
Sadly, I doubt we’ll see less carnage than we did in 2019.
Follow Chris Campbell on Twitter @shinebox44.
