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Earlier this year, a massive multi-vehicle crash near Hope, on the Coquihalla Highway, resulted in more than two dozen people being rushed to hospitals. It was another in a series of crashes on the highway that had safety experts saying the speed limit should be reduced to even lower than what it was in 2014.

Dr. Brubacher told Postmedia News that “things got a lot worse” on the highways where speed limits increased, especially on the Coquihalla highway.

“You will recall there was a lot of controversy at the time. Public health experts said ‘don’t do this’ and so did I,” said Brubacher, a road safety researcher who is also an associate professor at the University of British Columbia. He chairs the British Columbia Road Safety Strategy Research and Data Committee and also sits on the City of Vancouver Traffic Safety Advisory group.

“All of the pro-speed arguments, like the one that people were already driving over the speed limit, have been disproven in this research. The pro-speed advocates who’ve lobbied for speed limit increases have based their view on crappy data at the time. The mistake should be admitted and speed rolled back because, from a safety point of view, it was the wrong decision,” he said.

Brubacher and his UBC co-authors conclude their study by saying that communities across Canada, especially those with slippery winter roads or those where roads traverse mountainous terrain, “should learn from this experience and resist pressure from pro speed advocates to raise speed limits without due consideration to road safety.