Medicine Hat, AB – Residents of Medicine Hat recently completed a road safety survey and Hatters are feeling pretty good about their safety and knowledge behind the wheel.
Nearly 300 people completed the survey, leaving 1,000 comments on five topics:
This months focus for the City of Medicine Hat was intersection safety.
“There was some focus on the fact that a stop sign means stop,” explained City of Medicine Hat Municipal Engineer Randi Buchner. “Looking both ways before you enter an intersection, that kind of stuff. The overall score was 78%, so that’s a really good base-knowledge, but that also means there’s room for improvement. “
So, what areas could Hatters improve on?
“There’s always room for improvement when it comes to road safety. There’s some traffic related rules that maybe they’re not aware of and hopefully when they’re out there driving, it’s stuff that comes back to their mind.”
Sergeant Sean Maxwell of the Redcliff RCMP says this initiative is certainly one that needs to be discussed.
“Nobody wants to get in a collision either with another vehicle or hitting a pedestrian.” explained Maxwell. “That’s where these messages are definitely aimed towards and it isn’t just new drivers, it’s everybody driving out there right now.”
Maxwell then added that intersection rules like stopping fully at a stop-sign have hefty penalties.
“That’s a $388 ticket. It’s expensive to run through a stop sign. That means a person needs to make sure their wheels are stopped, maybe their vehicle rocks back and they’re coming to a complete stop. From there, a person should be looking around at the intersection before proceeding when it’s safe to do so.”
Owner of Drivers Edge Mona Delaney says there are a few things a person can be aware of when approaching an intersection.
“When you pull up to any intersection, you should be scanning well ahead,” says Delaney. “Scanning left, centre and right as you go through, looking for signs, whose got the right of way and always being prepared to stop.”
Delaney says if a person is unsure about the rules of the road, there’s a few things an individual can do.
“I think one of the biggest things is that if you have questions, you need to ask. You can go to the Alberta Transportation website or you can download the driver’s handbook. It doesn’t hurt for anyone to refresh on that. You can always call Drivers Edge, we’d be more than happy to field any questions.”
She also wanted to make sure people were aware of one thing in specific.
“I think one of the biggest things that people need to be aware of, is the third highest cause of casualty collisions in our province is left hand turns. People are continually turning left and not yielding to oncoming traffic. I think that has to be something that we’re all really aware of.”
Towards the end of the campaign, the City of Medicine Hat will do another survey in regards to road safety.
