I write on behalf of B.C.’s public health physicians who responded to the call for submissions to the B.C. Safety and Speed Review. It is with concern that we greet the recent announcement of higher speed limits on a number of B.C.’s provincial highways.

Between 2008 and 2012, 16,654 British Columbians lost their lives on B.C.’s roads. According to RoadSafetyBC (formerly the Office of the Superintendent of Motor Vehicles) 35 per cent of these fatalities involved speed as a factor. The largest number of fatalities was recorded from the roads in the Southern Interior, which makes up part of the Interior Health Authority, which also has the highest crash fatality rate per 100,000 population.

One half of the fatalities were recorded on roads with a speed limit of 90 km/h or greater. Thousands more British Columbians suffered life-changing injuries during this same period.

We welcome the safety measures that were announced — updates to winter tire legislation, wildlife warning systems, and variable speed limit signs. We applaud the roadside suspension program that saw crash fatalities due to drugs and alcohol fall in both 2011 and 2012.

However, from a public health and safety perspective, the decision to increase speed limits ignores the preponderance of evidence relating to speed and crashes and appears to be at variance with the statement that “safety is our No. 1 priority.”

There is, in fact, little controversy in the scientific literature on the association between speed, crashes, and related death. B.C.’s own Road Safety Strategy emphasizes that speed increases both the likelihood of a crash and the likelihood of severe injury and death once a crash occurs.

Speed decreases the amount of time a driver has to react, decreases manoeuvrability, increases stopping distances, and exponentially increases the force in a collision. Although all collisions are complex and are affected by many factors, the laws of physics are incontrovertible, and the consequences of speed are consistent across decades of research in numerous countries across all road types.

The repercussions of high-speed collisions are severe, and young people are particularly affected. They experience a disproportionate share of collisions and must carry any associated disability for the rest of their lives.

Motor vehicle collisions are the leading cause of death among people 15-25 years of age, with males outnumbering females three to one.

Young drivers have particular difficulty accurately judging travel time and distance, speed and stopping distances, and may not be able to navigate the same speeds as more experienced drivers do. In recent years, More than 40 per cent of fatal crashes among young males were speed-related.

Small increases in speed make a large difference, too. The risk of involvement in a crash that will result in an injury increases exponentially with the speed of the vehicle, doubling with each five kilometres per hour in travel speeds above 60 km/h.

Groups advocating for higher speed limits cite safety concerns regarding slow drivers and claim that higher speed limits will encourage everyone to drive at similar speeds. The claim that slow drivers are a source of collisions is based on flawed studies from 50 years ago, and is refuted in present research.

B.C.’s stated goal in its Road Safety Strategy is to work toward zero deaths and zero injuries on roads. We fear that these goals will not be met, and are concerned that progress might even be reversed by increasing current speed limits. It is critical, therefore, that the rates of serious injuries and deaths on these roads be monitored and compared with those before the increases. We recommend this monitoring be reported annually through the Provincial Road Safety Steering Committee.

The public health community of B.C. is deeply concerned these speed limit increases will undermine the measurable progress that B.C. has made in reducing road injuries and death. We sincerely hope our concern will turn out to be unwarranted.

Dr. Perry Kendall is B.C.’s provincial health officer. Signatories to this opinion article are:Dr. Sandra Allison, chief medical health officer, Northern Health Authority;

Dr. Andrew Larder, senior medical health officer, Interior Health Authority;

Dr. Victoria Lee (for Dr. Paul Van Buynder, chief medical health officer), Fraser Health Authority;

Dr. Patricia Daly, chief medical health officer, Vancouver Coastal Health;

Dr. Richard Stanwick, chief medical health officer, Island Health Authority;

Health Officers Council of British Columbia.”