Alberta Politics & Government Thread 3.0

[#-3]

Spoiler More Speed limit talk, you guys can keeps saying the speed limit change will kill people, but it just isn't an evidence backed claim, so the outrage is misplaced, and we should hold ourselves to a higher standard on the left.

What we should be complaining that she's coming for our pension again. and in 25 years I could be trying to retire on O&G stocks (banking heavily on O&G stocks 25 years from now is a thought that exceeds my risk tolerance ).

She also wants to double down on big government and more bureaucracy adding additional layers of Administration in policing to our province.

https://calgaryherald.com/news/alber...endations-folo

I don't make enough money to thrive in the economy Smith is building, we need to stop her.

Spoiler!

Originally Posted by powderjunkie

In an effort to make this data more meaningful, I added a larger sample of countries and adjusted for km driven (given that life style and vehicle usage rates play a big role in these percapita numbers). the correlation between speed and risk doesn't really exist in this data set.

Country Deaths per 1 Billion km Max Speed Limit (km/h)
South Korea 17.5 110
Italy 7.8 130
Japan 7.6 120
Spain 7.6 120
United States 6.8 137 (85 mph)
Belgium 6.4 120
New Zealand 6.3 110
Austria 5.9 130
France 5.8 130
Canada 5.6 120
Australia 5.0 130
Finland 4.9 120
Germany 4.6 No limit
Netherlands 4.5 130
Switzerland 4.3 120
Denmark 3.9 130
Ireland 3.8 120
United Kingdom 3.5 113 (70 mph)
Sweden 3.4 110
Norway 3.1 110

[Whynotnow]

I get your passion on this but here’s my issue - this is not how issues like this should be decided. Populism and internet polls are not how public safety measures should be determined. This is and engineering and risk management decision.

You have a strong opinion here and you’ve been able to back some of it up, but honestly it’s not definitive that it gets safer as you like to claim. Given our road design, traffic volumes and weather conditions I think there’s a chance you’re wrong, and for 10-15 minutes of saved time I don’t think it’s worth it.

The only stretch that it makes sense to me on is probably just north of Ponoka to just south of the weigh scales and that’s it.

[Wolven]

Originally Posted by #-3

Spoiler More Speed limit talk, you guys can keeps saying the speed limit change will kill people, but it just isn't an evidence backed claim, so the outrage is misplaced, and we should hold ourselves to a higher standard on the left.

I do not see much outage. Just a healthy questioning attitude as people are not coming to the same conclusion or have different priorities.

Personally I do not see value in raising the speed limit or any rationale for making a speed limit change a high priority. I believe there is plenty of evidence that higher speeds result in more accidents and those high-speed accidents are far more horrific. There is no real gains to offset the increased risk or the increased impact when an incident occurs. (I also think that Alberta has more than enough irresponsible and reckless drivers that make the road unsafe as things are now and raising the speed limit will do nothing to make the situation better.)

If you want to say that the risk is small, that is fine, but (IMO) the value is still smaller. In Alberta, I think we could easily put together a list of 100 more important topics and issues that the government needs to make better (or stop making significantly worse).

Also, I guess I am confused why the insurance companies would put together a report that signals a speed limit increase is a bad idea. What do they have to gain from that? The only logical reason is that they know that speed increases harms their bottom line because it increases the number of insurance incidents.

Originally Posted by #-3

What we should be complaining that she's coming for our pension again. and in 25 years I could be trying to retire on O&G stocks (banking heavily on O&G stocks 25 years from now is a thought that exceeds my risk tolerance ).

She also wants to double down on big government and more bureaucracy adding additional layers of Administration in policing to our province.

https://calgaryherald.com/news/alber...endations-folo

I don't make enough money to thrive in the economy Smith is building, we need to stop her.

The libertarian demonstrates (again) that she was an authoritarian all along. Shocking.

Honestly, the recalls look like our best path to bring power back to the people. We desperately need that first recall to get enough signatures so we can send the message to government and make them collectively freak out. Hopefully it triggers an election and then we can shift our efforts from recalls to activating more votes for the NDP, or even the PTP. Whatever it takes to get the UCP out of government.

[TorqueDog]

#-3 and I have made the technical case, the opposing viewpoint is making a moral one couched in the idea that uncertainty exists (as it does, sure) and that said uncertainty should bias us toward inaction. That's fine -- though I disagree -- but I feel like the discussion has hit the point where this isn't a disagreement about traffic engineering, it's a disagreement about risk tolerance and tradeoffs in establishing policy.

Neither of us are arguing that speed can't increase severity (in fact, pretty sure that's how physics works), or that infrastructure doesn't matter. But both of us are arguing that on the sort of highway we're talking about in normal conditions, misaligned speed limits increase variance and conflict, and the evidence on that is not only favourable but well-established and broadly accepted in traffic engineering. I say we should optimize for total harm reduction by reducing variance, while accepting that severity in crashes may rise slightly.

If the opposing position -- as it seems to be -- is that positive action leading to any potential increase in severe outcomes is unacceptable regardless of variance effects and that we should prioritize minimizing worst-case outcomes -- even if the resulting inaction increases conflict frequency and non-compliance -- then we're talking policy risk tolerance, because that position doesn't really square with how these problems are addressed practically. Reasonable people can land in different places there, philosophically.

But I do need to insist that the "10-15 minutes / convenience" rhetorical framing be put to bed. There is no 10-15 minutes to be gained here; for the millionth time, this is the speed most people are already traveling on this roadway. This is squarely about reducing speed differential which reduces the rate of traffic conflict.

[Whynotnow]

Originally Posted by TorqueDog

#-3 and I have made the technical case, the opposing viewpoint is making a moral one couched in the idea that uncertainty exists (as it does, sure) and that said uncertainty should bias us toward inaction. That's fine -- though I disagree -- but I feel like the discussion has hit the point where this isn't a disagreement about traffic engineering, it's a disagreement about risk tolerance and tradeoffs in establishing policy.

Neither of us are arguing that speed can't increase severity (in fact, pretty sure that's how physics works), or that infrastructure doesn't matter. But both of us are arguing that on the sort of highway we're talking about in normal conditions, misaligned speed limits increase variance and conflict, and the evidence on that is not only favourable but well-established and broadly accepted in traffic engineering. I say we should optimize for total harm reduction by reducing variance, while accepting that severity in crashes may rise slightly.

If the opposing position -- as it seems to be -- is that positive action leading to any potential increase in severe outcomes is unacceptable regardless of variance effects and that we should prioritize minimizing worst-case outcomes -- even if the resulting inaction increases conflict frequency and non-compliance -- then we're talking policy risk tolerance, because that position doesn't really square with how these problems are addressed practically. Reasonable people can land in different places there, philosophically.

But I do need to insist that the "10-15 minutes / convenience" rhetorical framing be put to bed. There is no 10-15 minutes to be gained here; for the millionth time, this is the speed most people are already traveling on this roadway. This is squarely about reducing speed differential which reduces the rate of traffic conflict.

But what you are saying is that you definitely think then that top speeds will not increase and that differentials will narrow. I think there’s lots of reasons that may not be the case at all. So my framing of 10-15 minutes rhetorical stands.

And traffic engineering is inherently a conversation about risk and trade offs.

[Coach]

I have an itch for the schadenfreude I would experience by watching people/politicians from AB react after voting yes for separation. Like, did you read the plan? It's basically:

Step 1: Separate
Step 2: Bank on a whole bunch of favours from Canada and the US to allow the transition to an independent nation.
Step 3: .... there is no step 3 because Step 2 is not a thing.


At best you're becoming North Montana.