You’re not alone if you feel Calgary’s roads are more hectic than they once were.
“Calgary was an easy [driving] city 20-some years ago, much easier,” says Dragoslav Vujanovic, CEO and founder of A Proactive Driving School. “There was less risk and less stress on the road in general.”
Vujanovic has more than 28 years of experience as a driving instructor and has lived in the city for more than three decades. He has seen attitudes toward road rules change over time.
“I think 10 years ago, majority [of] people actually saw rules as the rules,” he says. “While now, they see those rules as suggestions.”
In recent years, road safety has become a significant concern, with the city experiencing an increase in road-related fatalities. According to Calgary Police Service data, the city has hit a 10-year high in fatal car-to-car and motorcycle collisions, as well as fatal pedestrian collisions.
Other findings, such as increased reports of distracted drivers and an uptick in road rage, contribute to CPS’s findings and mounting worries.
Kurt Jacobs, acting inspector for the Calgary Police traffic section, says accidents only take a few seconds. “It’s sad and tragic, but we’ve seen a lot of young people lose their lives due to speeding.”
The City of Calgary and CPS attribute the rise in fatalities to a mix of distracted driving, higher vehicle speeds, and population growth, compounded by limited funding for safety upgrades.
“Now that we know it’s an increasing problem and have that awareness, now we all have a part to play,” says Jacobs.
Recognizing the need for a coordinated, evidence-based approach, Calgary has been monitoring its roads through the Safer Mobility Plan since 2020.
Its focus is on reducing major injuries and fatalities on roadways through engagement, equity, engineering, education, enforcement, and evaluation, says Joanna Domarad, Mobility Safety Ops Leader for the City of Calgary. Domarad has helped guide the plan’s development and implementation over the past two years.
The initiative is a joint effort between the city, CPS, and several provincial partners. Its long-term goal is to achieve “Vision Zero,” which views deaths and serious injuries as unacceptable outcomes of traffic collisions and seeks to eliminate them.
It hopes to have a 25 per cent reduction in all types of traffic collisions every four years.
“Irrespective of where we end up, I think as long as we’re moving in the right direction and making our streets safer, we’ll eventually start seeing the impact,” Domarad says.
Limited funding
Infrastructure improvements are a key part of the plan. Domarad says the city reviews collision data and implements measures to reduce risk, prioritizing areas with the highest crash severity.
The Speed Bump Program, for example, installs temporary bumps, and the city monitors their impact to determine whether they should add permanent installations.
“We are currently delivering more than 100 projects per year,” Domarad says. “So I think this year there will be more than 120, and that includes projects that have temporary measures as well as permanent measures.”
Domarad, however, highlights that Calgary is substantially underfunded in the amount it allocates to traffic and road safety compared with other major cities.
Compared with Edmonton’s $165.6 million 2023 roadway budget, Calgary allocates between $40 million and $50 million annually.
“We can only go as fast as the funding allows,” Domarad said.
Recently, the city received approval for an additional $7.5 million to go toward Vision Zero initiatives like speed cushions, crosswalk upgrades, and general road-safety maintenance.
Enforcement
Beyond implementing road improvements, enforcement remains a critical part of the effort.
The City of Calgary’s Traffic Safety Team consists of eight peace officers and two sergeants. They’re tasked with monitoring school and playground zones and enforcing noisy-vehicle violations.
In areas with serious collisions, including those involving pedestrians or fatalities, CPS have been using handheld devices to monitor speeds and gather data on average driver behaviour. But the method has limitations.
“Our officers can’t be everywhere at once,” says Jacobs. “You’re getting a snapshot of a particular day of the week, time of month, and season.”
Because CPS can’t be everywhere at once, it’s improving its Automated Traffic Enforcement program, which includes mobile photo-radar cameras and intersection safety devices used to collect data and support its findings on severe intersections.
CPS also says it’s seen an increased number of tickets used for vehicles travelling more than 50 km/h over the posted limit. That level of speeding requires a mandatory court appearance and is excessive and dangerous.
Jacobs credits the collision reconstruction team, too, which is made up of experts who analyze the causes of major collisions and provide insight that can help prevent similar incidents in the future.
Still, police cannot address every concern without help from the public and emphasized that residents report dangerous driving behaviour. “If police keep getting this particular license plate, this particular vehicle that keeps coming on our radar, we’re certainly going to deal with it in the best way we can,” Jacobs said.
For non-emergency-related calls: Traffic Service Requests system.
Education and engagement
In terms of changing today’s drivers’ attitudes and raising public awareness, the Community Speed Watch Program, a joint initiative between the city and CPS, allows volunteers to work alongside police to monitor vehicle speeds and interact with daily motorists.
“Some of those concerned citizens are invited to come out with our members and have actually took part, watching the radar, watching the speeds of people coming into their community,” said Jacobs.
Much of that work is done by CPS’s Residential Traffic Safety Unit, which is responsible for responding to traffic-service requests, working with public-safety partners, and engaging with communities. Jacobs describes it as one tool for CPS to interact with the community and work with Calgary residents on specific initiatives.
Domarad echoed Jacobs’ view of the initiative, noting its influence since the first version of the Safer Mobility Plan launched in 2020. “It is actually a program that was evaluated in the past, and it did show that it provides a level of speed reduction for the next period of time,” Domarad said. “So we know it can be effective.” She also says it leads to tangible impacts by identifying issues and allowing the city to deploy measures.
Another initiative highlighted by Domarad is Active and Safe Routes to School. Officers work with students, parents, and teachers to track how children travel to and from school, identify problem areas, and recommend improvements to the city’s surrounding road network.
“So that one, we’ve actually increased the number, because there has been an unprecedented demand by the schools,” Domarad said. “We usually do 10 schools per year, but this year, that has been increased to 18 schools just to meet that demand.”
The role of drivers
Officials from both organizations meet monthly, but as they stressed, there’s only so much they can do. All three sources emphasized that a significant share of responsibility rests with drivers for safe behaviour on the road.
“People don’t realize just how big the impact of their speed is,” Domarad said. “[They] think that because they’re a good driver, their behaviour can make up for the fact that they’re going over the speed limit or driving too fast for conditions.” She says that’s not the case, and in fact, speed has a direct impact on the risk of collision as well as the outcome.
The World Health Organization confirms her warning, reporting that a one per cent increase in average vehicle speed is associated with a four per cent rise in fatal crash risk and a three per cent rise in serious crash risk. That report also notes that the risk of pedestrian death increases 4.5 times when the impact speed rises from 50 km/h to 65 km/h.
“Speed, every time, has a significant impact on the risk of collision and on the outcomes. People are more likely to be severely injured or killed,” says Domarad.
Jacobs adds that pedestrian behaviour, such as jaywalking, also plays a role.
“The fact is, even if you’ve got the green light and the right of way, take two seconds, look both ways, and make sure no one’s barreling through,” he said. “In real life, you only have one chance, and sometimes those things end very fast, within seconds.”
To bring it all together, this is precisely why Vujanovic named his company A Proactive Driving School. He says that while some people may be confident drivers, the most critical skill in mitigating risk is to see the hazard before it happens.
“That’s what majority of people struggle with for a long time,” he says. Telling new drivers to expect the unexpected. “Don’t get surprised or angry when somebody else is doing something you didn’t expect them to do.”
With his extensive experience on Calgary roads, Vujanovic knows what he is talking about. If there is one thing he could ask of Calgary drivers, it is to be more proactive and less defensive. Noting that when you’re a defensive driver, you’re putting yourself and someone else in some conflict. “While proactive means thinking ahead, planning ahead, driving with consideration of other road users, and accounting for their mistakes,” he says.
Vujanovic says proactive driving isn’t complex and relies on simple things like signalling and shoulder checking. But above all, it’s about having enough patience and cooperation between one another on the roads.
“We like to judge others, to say, ‘Oh, he’s a bad driver.’ Why am I saying that? Because when I say he’s bad, that means I’m pushing myself higher. I’m better than him, which is wrong,” he says. “We don’t need to judge each other. We need to help each other.”
