Every day when he leaves the University of Quebec Chicoutimi (UQAC) campus, Martin Lavallière sees drivers running the red light in front of the institution.
Posted at 5:00 am.
“It’s people’s turn and four or five of them pass on the red card. Not the yellow one. The Red. »
Delinquent behavior becoming increasingly common and trivialised, says professor from the Department of Health Sciences at UQAC. “Montreal, Quebec, Saguenay… We’re constantly told about it. We have allowed our driving to deteriorate. And the latest road report confirms this. »
In Quebec, 28,715 people suffered minor, serious or fatal injuries in collisions with a motor vehicle last year. In Ontario, 25,165 people suffered the same fate – even though Ontario has slightly less than twice as many people as Quebec (15 million compared to 8.7 million).
Year after year, Ontario has the best road record in Canada, followed by Quebec. In Quebec we are usually second in terms of population.
Gino Desrosiers, spokesman for the Société de l’assurance automobile du Québec (SAAQ)
That means there are 3,300 injury crashes per million residents in Quebec, compared to 1,680 per million in Ontario, the country’s two most populous provinces. And for 2021 and 2020 the proportions are similar.
In British Columbia, an average of nearly 17,000 injuries were reported in traffic accidents over the past five years, or 3,400 per million people. In Alberta, where there have been an average of 16,000 injury crashes over the past five years, that rate was 3,700 per million that same year.
The question arises: Are Quebecers voluntarily adopting behaviors that make public roads more dangerous for people there than in Ontario? Or are they more prone to distraction?
“Everyone went for a walk”
With the pandemic lockdowns, a more positive traffic balance seemed within reach.
Since the number of trips by motor vehicle is directly related to the dangerousness of a road, the decrease in the number of trips suggested a decrease in deaths and serious injuries in accidents.
However, this is not the case.
Marco Harrison, director of the CAA-Quebec Foundation and a road safety expert, was surprised that the death toll had increased during the pandemic.
“It was the time when people were at home and everyone went for walks,” he says. But the number of fatalities in accidents has not decreased, nor has the number of seriously injured people decreased significantly. We were surprised,” he said.
A study by the American Automobile Association (AAA) Highway Safety Foundation showed that the pandemic essentially took safe drivers (predominantly women) off the road and replaced them with drivers with aggressive behavior. drivers at greater risk (young men).
For example, young men are 44% more likely to text while driving, 80% more likely to speed on highways and residential streets, and 80% more likely to run red lights. You are also almost three times more likely to drive drunk or under the influence.
An observation that is not unique to the United States and has had implications even after the pandemic, says Mr. Harrison.
“It confirms that there is more deviant behavior. In 90% of cases, the collision is caused by a human factor: it is the result of the action of a person behind the wheel. As far as the number of deaths and serious injuries are concerned, we have gone down for ten years,” he said, adding that one should wait for the results for 2023 before talking about a black streak.
“If 2023 has a bad record, we will be in disaster mode. There will be an electric shock,” he said.
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95 Number of people killed by heavy trucks, tractor-trailers or buses in Quebec in 2022. Of these, 16 people were occupants of the heavy vehicle, while 79 were non-occupants. It’s a rising toll.
Source: Quebec Automobile Insurance Company
24.2% Percentage of deaths (95 of 392) that occurred in a heavy vehicle accident in Quebec in 2022
Source: Quebec Automobile Insurance Company