Skip to content

Speed sign all flash

Data not collected, but signs are effective says ministry.
Speed sign all flash
Speed readers

The speed reader installed beside the Burns Lake bottle depot on the east end of town won’t be collecting data regarding its effectiveness anytime soon. The $10,000 display was to have been able to monitor traffic data, but technical difficulties have prevented that.

“We are disappointed,” said Cam Schley, operations manager with the Ministry of Transportation (MOT) for the Bulkley Stikine District. “The ministry was hoping to get some local statistics on the effect of the new speed reader sign.”

Schley said that at this point the MOT would have to purchase additional software to enable the collection of data.  With the reader already operational and, hopefully, doing its job, it would be counter-productive to take them off-line to install new software.

“We have some other options that we are looking at for gathering speed data,” Schley added. If the MOT is successful with those options, they will share the data.

Despite the inability of the Burns Lake reader to collect data to confirm its effectiveness, Schley offered some general information coming out of research into the effectiveness of the flashing signs for speed management.

“Speed reader signs have proven to be consistently effective at getting drivers to slow down, reducing speeds by about 10 per cent,” he said. “[The] signs have shown a dramatic reduction in the speed of vehicles travelling in excess of the speed limit.”

 

A speed reader sign installed in Houston suffered the same technical difficulties as the Burns Lake sign, and it has been unable to collect any data.