Eastbound trips down the 401 into Québec offer great opportunities for observational research into the driving patterns of Ontarians and Quebeckers.
Ontarians have a tendency to move into the far left lane, turn on the cruise control and stay there. With their eyes transfixed on the road ahead, they seem to rarely check the rear view mirror. And when cars pass them on the right side, they ignore them.
As you get closer to the Québec border and that big ‘Bonjour’ sign, cars with Québec license plates start taking over the road. And the driving experience, so to speak, changes – more aggressive driving, tailgating, and weaving in and out of traffic lanes.
But is that really supported by data?
Quebeckers on the road
Angus Reid Strategies asked Canadians in November 2008 about what they see on the roads in their province. It concluded that Quebeckers are considerably less inclined than residents in the rest of Canada to have observed bad driving habits. And they are more likely to say that only a few of the drivers in their municipality are bad, and less likely to say that most of them are bad.
So, Quebeckers think they’re pretty good drivers. Or perhaps they don’t see bad driving habits for what they are.
Kanetix.ca offers online auto insurance quotes to Canadians and has valuable data to mine. Of the total car insurance quotes completed online in 2006, 16 per cent included at least one ticket. Québec was in line with the national average.
Percentage of quotes that included at least one ticket:
- Alberta: 17%
- Ontario: 16%
- Québec: 15%
- New Brunswick: 12%
- Prince Edward Island: 9%
- Nova Scotia: 8%
Without fail, the most common traffic ticket across provinces was for speeding. But Québec was the only province to have “signaling offences” in the top five.
I rest (part of) my case.
It’s worth noting that traffic deaths are declining in Canada. Death rates were highest in the Yukon between 2000 and 2004, followed by Saskatchewan, P.E.I., Nunavut, New Brunswick, Alberta, B.C. and Manitoba. Ontario and Newfoundland and Labrador were the only two provinces with death rates below the national average of nine per 100,000. The death rate in Québec was 9.1 per 100,000 people in line with the national average.
To reduce this rate, Québec’s auto-insurance board appears to be shifting gears with its advertising this summer. After trying to change attitudes and behaviors with blood, gore and death, it is now using statistics and charts to show how little time drivers save by speeding. According to a piece published by Canwest News Service:
The example in the ads focuses on someone driving on a road with a 90 km/h speed limit. If you drive at 110 km/h over a 15-km stretch of that road, you'll save only about two minutes, a police officer says in the ad. Yet your chance of having an accident would be six times greater than if you had driven at the speed limit.
The same article quotes Jean-Marie De Koninck, a Université Laval professor and head of a government committee on road safety, who said previous years' shock ads were effective, but such tactics don't work on all drivers.
"Shock ads are good, but some people don't identify with the violence - it's too over-the-top or surreal for them, like they're watching a movie.”
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