According to the Jan. 25 council meeting, violence (physical force to hurt, damage or kill) in Whistler was up 60 per cent over this past holiday season—you were probably stuck as traffic while these events occurred. The weapon used is personal automobiles.
Over the past five years, Whistler has seen, on average, more than one injury per week on our roads, according to ICBC data. That’s 60 human beings per year who are injured in car crashes—this can be a real life-changing event for individuals and their families. Zero concern for affected families was noted from our elected officials on Jan 25. It’s as though this violence goes unseen and/or is wilfully ignored.
Total violence on Whistler roads is much more dramatic: 1,191 car cashes in the Resort Municipality of Whistler (not including parked cars) in the past five years, according to ICBC data. That’s nearly five crashes per week in Whistler. The human and economic costs are staggering.
Over the past five years there have been 109 crashes at Highway 99 and Function, including 39 injuries at this intersection. If there were hundreds of plane crashes at one airport, substantial action would have been taken. How are we OK with this much carnage?
As vehicles are not yet autonomous, the cause of these crashes must be driver error: speed, distracted driving, poor winter preparation, reckless driving, etc... But there is also the issue of dangerous road design: roads that induce speed and do not ensure safe driving habits; why else is no driver capable of driving the 30km/h speed limit of our local roads?
While the RMOW is spending thousands of dollars on new cameras for village surveillance (“to reduce violence”) the majority of municipal violence goes on as it always has—on our roads.
