66 responses so far ↓

• 1 IanS // Jan 29, 2011 at 6:59 pm

  @Spartikus #50,

  You write:

  “Could you expand? If not strict liability, what is being described?

  Or would you have to bill me :p”

  Heh.

  I didn’t mean to be flip in my earlier response, though I think I came across that way. There are books and books and books written about this kind of stuff and it’s complex, even to someone who has legal training.

  At the risk (no certainty) of grossly oversimplifying, and to address only one small part of the issue, tort law is generally directed at imposing liability based on fault. Fault might be an intentional act, such as in the tort of battery, or a careless act (ie. negligence). The concept of strict liability allows for the imposition of liability without the necessity of any finding of fault. It was, at least originally, a creation of the common law (google “Rylands v. Fletcher”). (I’m referring now solely to the common law, not civil law.)

  The article to which you link does use the words “strict liability”, but most of the various techniques it identifies do not amount to the imposition of strict liability. That includes “making fault easier for the victim to prove” (an evidentiary issue, from the sound of it), “presumptions of fault or reversals of the burden of proof” (which seem to relate to legal burdens, not the ultimate test for imposition of liability and “No-fault liability” (which, as it is typically used, takes the issue out of the realm of tort law entirely, and so on.

  You also have to take into account the difference between civil law (which seems to be the subject of the article) and common law, which often take a very different approach to the legal analysis (I’m hazy on that, having never studied civil law).

  I hope that clarifies my earlier comments a bit. As I said, the issue is very complex and is often the subject of debate among those who know a good deal more about it than you or I.

  Now, if you’d just PM me your contact info so I can prepare an invoice. … 😉

• 2 Lewis N. Villegas // Jan 29, 2011 at 10:14 pm

  Thanks, Richard.

• 3 Roger Kemble // Jan 30, 2011 at 1:13 am

  “Agreed that streets need to be designed to discourage speeds above 30km/h.”

  Yup. it’s called the Woonerf system in Holland.

  Been in existence for years . . . ignored here because people who drive sports cars would rather get their jollies off than practice what they preach . . .

• 4 Jason // Jan 30, 2011 at 5:14 pm

  Might be a bit of an over simplification of the problem there Rob.

  While I do think the 30km/h change for residential areas is a good idea, these boards have a bad habit of assuming we can simply transpose something that has worked in Europe and assume it will work exactly the same way in North America.

  Europe, in general, is far more collectively/community focused than North America. While Canada isn’t as bad as the U.S., we’re still far more “individually” focused than many parts of Europe. To assume we can simply “reproduce” the same results here using the exact same strategies over there, I believe, is a mistake.

  No, we’re aren’t a “unique snowflake” but we’re also not Europe. I think we can definitely start with an experience/idea that has worked in Europe, but then I think it needs to be catered to the North American market….which may necessitate more of “stick” that speaks more directly to the potential consequences to the “individual”.

• 5 Lewis N. Villegas // Jan 30, 2011 at 6:21 pm

  Another difference I find between Canada and Europe—especially Spain, France & Italy—is our regard for “the rules”. Sometimes to a fault.

  Over there, if five lanes of cars fit, but there’s only four painted on (Rome), then you get five lanes of traffic.

  Residential speed limit in Blaine, Washington (not exactly Europe)? 25 mph. And it works. The streets are quieter.

  But, I agree with Jason, it’s not just as easy as a speed drop. We have to change the design as well as the experience for the driver.

  Speed limits are fine on Vancouver residential streets that work like “jump streets”—you know, cars parked either side and only enough room for one car to get by at a time. So, drivers cue and when their turn comes, they jump!

  The real culprit is the arterial. There the design of the R.O.W. would allow speeds far in excess of posted speed limits. Even without a centre median, Clarke feels okay at 80 k/hr at morning peak time.

  If you study the fronting residential, on Clarke or any arterial, you’ll soon see the scars left by the high volume and high speed of traffic. What’s the solution? Here are some questions in the form of suggestions:

  (a) Give BRT/LRT R.O.W. priority. Make it so that we can go from Marine to 4th Ave or Marine to Hastings in 8 minutes off-peak, and maybe 18 minutes at peak.

  (b) Slow the traffic down. Maybe 30 k/hr off-peak; 50 k/hr during the rush. Accomplish this with off-peak curbside parking.

  But, here’s the one that I really wonder about:

  (c) Improve traffic flow. Marine to Hastings is 5 miles last I checked. At 30 m.ph. I can drive that distance in 10 minutes. At 20 mph it will take me 15 mins. That’s without red lights.

  Can giving transit signal priority also achieve efficiencies in traffic flow?

• 6 Joe Just Joe // Jan 30, 2011 at 8:13 pm

  I sentence Lewis to right the following line 100 times.
  It’s Clark not Clarke, it’s Cordova not Coboda and it’s Concord Pacific not Concorde.

  With cut and paste it shouldn’t take you long, and we’ll all be thankful if it works.

• 7 david hadaway // Jan 31, 2011 at 9:35 am

  JJJ, 1oo lines for you too;

  ‘Right is wrong when written to read write.’

• 8 Michelle // Jan 31, 2011 at 10:33 am

  #57 @ David.
  LOL, you have a great eye for detail. You caught JJJ fair and square. Too funny!

• 9 Joe Just Joe // Jan 31, 2011 at 11:08 am

  Caught redhanded. I’d say I did it on purpose for comic effect, but even I wouldn’t beleive it.

• 10 Chris Keam // Jan 31, 2011 at 11:47 am

  ‘believe’

  You must be banging your head on your desk about now JJJ and cursing the typo Gods?

• 11 Joe Just Joe // Jan 31, 2011 at 2:16 pm

  *l* w/o my firefox I’m a lost cause.

• 12 Bobbie Bees // Jan 31, 2011 at 2:55 pm

  Easiest way to cut down the carnage on the city streets.
  1) 20-25 km/h speed limit in all urban areas.
  2) Make car drivers 100% at fault for any accident involving a pedestrian or a cyclist.
  3) Ban audio sound systems of any type from automobiles.
  4) remove all traffic control lights and make all intersections stop controlled.

• 13 Roger Kemble // Feb 1, 2011 at 4:15 am

  Lest we continue to mistakenly lump BRT/LRT together, let us ponder the differences.

  The BRT over-head wired trolley and the bus both pose a traffic hazard as they indiscriminately pull out from curb on their frequent stops. The BRT bus emits deleterious toxic fume.

  The LRT tram is emissions free and courses a predictable centre line. Both Calgary and Curitiba Br. have solved the passenger alight/disembark issue with staging platforms.

  As for Bobbie Bees points 1-4, well here we go again: more rules and regulations to be ignored in the rush of every day life.

  Yet more musings from the ubiquitous control freaks.

  I am sure there is an obscure, dusty academic treatise, languishing on a forgotten shelf, proving that less regulation inspires personal responsibility and diminishing traffic accidents and more.

  Try Woonerf . . . it works . . .

• 14 Jason // Feb 1, 2011 at 3:04 pm

  Roger, while I found your post incredibly amusing, it did get me to look up “Woonerf” and I thought the bottom note on Wiki was interesting:

  “The locality of Hesselterbrink in Emmen, Netherlands, designed as a woonerf in 1970s, is reported to be disillusioned with the way the woonerf principle has become another traffic engineering measure that “entailed precious little more than signs and uniform standards”. They have now encompassed the shared space principles as a way of rethinking the woonerf. They are reported to “now know that car drivers should become residents. Eye contact and human interaction are more effective means to achieve and maintain attractive and safe areas than signs and rules”.”

  Interesting that perhaps some intelligent urban design coupled with some common courtesy and respect for all modes of transport might achieve the desired result, rather than endless rules, regulations and restrictions.

• 15 Lewis N. Villegas // Feb 2, 2011 at 1:27 am

  English is my second language. Spanish is my first. There is only one letter in Spanish that is silent (i.e. hidden) and that is the “h” at the start of a word. Everything else is pretty much the way you hear it.

  Then, there is my second “flaw”. I’m very visual, a habit that has probably been won at the expense of my “ear”. I love music, but don’t ask me to hum a tune.

  On the “Cordova-Cordoba” issue, I was born in a part of the globe where the local dialect does not distinguish between “v” and “b” phonetically. You could call me “Billegas” or “Villegas” and it would still come out sounding the same.

  Having said all that, grammatical correctness is important, and I am thrilled that people will help me out by pointing out my errors with local names. I will take note. And, to be sure, I’ll get it wrong again sometime.

  Spell check, of course, is our saviour… until it starts to suggest its own interpretations to our own typos. It is my new form of the Freudian Slip to look over a page of text and see what spell check has thought to put in. I can’t think of any examples off hand, but they can be hilarious (that last one a word I could not spell without looking in a dictionary, except for the spell check crutch).

  Love language!

• 16 Roger Kemble // Feb 2, 2011 at 1:53 am

  Jason @ #64

  Just another, “ . . . another traffic engineering measure . . . “. Yup!

  The Hesselterbrink experience . . .

  Well, isn’t that the maturing, the evolution, of a community learning as it goes . . . “.

  A coordinated Urban Code, caste in stone, can be an anathema to any healthy neighbourhood!

  Lewis @ #65 ¿Su idioma secundo es como? En espanole su nombre se pronuncia Beelayhazz.