Our highway speed limits are outdated!
Why does a huge country like Canada not have a highway similar to the German Autobahn?
A little History of speed limits in Canada; on February 7, 1975 Canada imposed a 55 mph speed limit. In 1973, reacting to the ban of oil sales to the United States and other Western countries by 11 Arab oil producers, President Richard Nixon lowered the U.S. speed limit to 55 mph in hopes of conserving gasoline. An addition to a greater reserve of oil, a by-product of the mandate turned out to be a lower rate of highway automobile fatalities. Two years later, Canada followed suit in hopes of lowering their own rate of highway fatalities.
Today we can buy cars that are capable of well over 150 Km/Hr. In Ontario the fastest speed you can drive is 100 Km/Hr which is on our 400-series highways. Even so, everyone still drives at around 120 Km/Hr. It is not uncommon to see many driving at 140 Km/Hr. Under our current law, police have every right to pull these people over. However driving at 120 Km/Hr the police generally do not bother them. For this reason I see 120 Km/Hr the unofficial speed limit. Recently though, a new law has been passed that will have the driver’s licence suspended and vehicle impounded if they exceed 50 Km/Hr over the speed limit on any road. I would agree with that for cities and rural areas. In fact I would make it 30 over the limit in those areas. But on the 400 series Highways, the speed limit should have been increased instead. Like in the Gazette article, the problem with speed limits is that they are too low.
While reading some forums I came across Ravin’s post and I tend to agree with it:
“The problem is, many American drivers either don’t know or don’t care about their own traffic laws, and American police are more concerned about passing out petty speeding tickets than chasing down truly reckless drivers (BIG HINT: speed does NOT equal recklessness. Being a stupid driver and not even knowing what the different lanes are for is far more reckless.)”
Also Ian Law posted a very good article about Lane Discipline which is far more 
important, and would save many more lives on our highways than cracking down on so called speeders.
Even if our Canadian highways cannot accommodate unlimited speeds, we should at least raise the speed limit. 100 Km/Hr could be the minimum and 180 Km/Hr could be the maximum. On German highways even in sections with no speed limits, people tend to settle at around a happy medium of 180 Km/Hr.
Even if this high speed road would have to be a toll road, I would gladly pay the price. Also this could help fund the maintenance of the highway to keep it in good condition for high speed driving.
Bad drivers are a concern? One of the best things I think the Ontario Government did recently was to introduce the Graduated Licensing (G1, G2 then full G). We could have an extra designation for driver’s licences permitting the holder to drive on a highway with speed limits greater than 100 Km/Hr. Just like we have restrictions on G1 and G2 licence; such as no driving at night or zero blood alcohol.
I believe we confuse a vehicle moving fast with recklessness, where the two are different things entirely. One thing is absolute; no matter what speed one is driving at, one must be fully alert, and rules of the road have to be followed. In today’s modernised world, and in a big country like Canada, is disappointing, no, it makes me angry that we do not have modern highways that have reasonable speed limits.
The problem here is that any idiot with a license can drive. There wouldn’t be any collisions here if we payed attention to our driving, then the speed limit wouldn’t matter as much.
Happy driving!
Edit: Another related post from a blog in the U.K. : Has the age-old speed limit become outdated?
Roberto Sebestyen
I agree a 100%
speed limit should be increased to 130km and police should inforce rules of driving on 400 series
I completely agree. I’ll admit I drive a little over the limit and when i’m on my streetbike it’s a little more than that, but i’m completely aware of everything around me. I live in Alberta, and if you’ve driven the prairies at all you know how boring it is and how easy it can be to speed up that much more on those roads, I mean Saskatchewan for example, even if you fall asleep while driving, the worst that can really happen is you’ll wake up a caouple hours later, still driving straight. Speed limits should be increased, at least to 120km/h like majority of people already do. A toll road with a high or no limit, sure not a problem, we have to pay a toll to go through national parks which are 90km/h speed limits so what’s the difference, and those roads aren’t even bad in regards to hazards. I find the biggest hazards are tourists, the people that a few times a year get in their motorhomes or pull their huge trailers and think that they’re the same as driving their economy car. Those are the ones that scare me, not the guy doing 150km/h or more that just passed me. Also, I find speed limits to be more of a suggestion than a limit itself. Drive, or ride, to your own skill level.