Road safety | SQ adopts plan with more teeth

To reduce the number of fatal collisions and serious injuries and to protect the most vulnerable road users, the Sûreté du Québec has adopted a new Vision Zero policy.

Nicolas Berube
Press

“Human life is at the heart of our actions,” said Captain Paul Leduc, responsible for the Road Safety and Recreational Tourism Service of the Sûreté du Québec, in a press briefing Thursday. Many police officers have become police officers to save lives, including me, and that is the goal behind our new direction. ”

Inspired by the Vision Zero plan of the City of Montreal and that of several provinces, including Ontario, the SQ plan aims to improve the safety of the road safety record by collaborating with several partners, including cities, the Ministry of Transport and the SAAQ, in particular.

Concretely, the SQ patrollers could be more visible and inclined to enforce speed limits, the main cause cited in fatal collisions in Quebec.

The number of injuries and deaths on Quebec roads would drop sharply if each driver reduced their average speed, according to the Société de l’assurance automobile du Québec. “We would see 12 fewer deaths per year for a reduction of 1 km / h, 60 fewer deaths per year for a reduction of 5 km / h, and 120 fewer deaths per year for a reduction of 10 km / h”, noted the SAAQ in July.

Although the question is not within its purview, the SQ could also occasionally make suggestions to lower the speed limit or to carry out modifications in problematic places. “On this issue and many others, we want to work with our partners. It is not possible to work in silos. It’s a new philosophy, ”said Paul Leduc when announcing the 2021-2026 Strategy on the security of transportation networks in Quebec on Thursday.

Shared responsibility

Fatal collisions are often seen as “accidents”, events caused by human error and against which nothing can be done. The Vision Zero approach, on the contrary, allows fatal collisions to be viewed through a multidisciplinary prism in order to address their causes – while taking human fallibility into account.

“Fatal collisions are often trivialized,” said Captain Leduc. That’s practically one death per day across all of our networks. Every road fatality affects a family in ways almost unimaginable, people are affected by this event for the rest of their lives. “

The safety of the most vulnerable road users will also be given greater priority by the Sûreté du Québec. In the past five years, 327 people traveling on foot have died on the roads of Quebec.

The SQ patrols some 75% of the roads in Quebec.

More proactive program

The number of road collisions causing death has decreased significantly over the past decades in Quebec, in particular thanks to the fact that vehicles are equipped with more safety devices than before.

As a result, the status quo no longer allows for any gains, hence the importance of implementing a more proactive program, noted Captain Leduc. “When you meet elected officials from the territories you serve, their number one concern is road safety,” he says.

The SQ is also extending this Vision Zero to recreational tourism vehicles, which also cause many deaths and injuries each year in the province.

Since the start of the pandemic, several people have purchased boats, ATVs or snowmobiles. For the most part, these are people who are just starting out, who do not have much experience with these vehicles, and therefore, the risk of collisions is present, noted the police force.