Could adding imperial measurements to traffic signs reduce underpass accidents in Regina?

One Regina city Councillor wants the city to investigate having both metric and imperial measurements on certain traffic signs.

Ward five Councillor John Findura submitted the motion to the Public Works and Infrastructure Committee to be debated at its next meeting.

The city has added multiple signs warning semi drivers that anything over 3.8 metres will get stuck.

There are a number of incidents where underpasses are damaged by over-height vehicles and Findura believes not all drivers have an understanding of the metric System.

“We’ve been working on the city side, saying, we need to put some signs up to inform not just at the bridge, but before the bridge,” Findura said. “It looks like it’s still not working.”

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Findura wants the city to investigate taking it a step further, adding an imperial measurement so the sign would read 3.8 metres and 12.5 feet.

“I mean if you ask me today to convert, I have to stop and think about that,” Findura said.

“It’s ok to say that a bridge is 4.5 metres, but 4.5 metres to an American driver doesn’t mean anything,” truck driver Roger Poulin said.

Executive Director for The Saskatchewan Trucking Association, Susan Ewart, isn’t quite sold.

“Canada has been using the metric system for 40 plus years. It feels like we might be going backwards with this initiative,” she wrote in an email to Global News. “Possibly more education to companies whose drivers use these low areas to get around so they know the height restrictions before planning their routes.”

“It’s a couple of signs,” Findura said. “I’m not saying we have to waste money, but change it around and if it helps, and we have no accidents then it works.”

He’s proposing administration provide a report back to the committee later this year on the feasibility of having relevant traffic signs in both the metric and imperial Systems to help decrease accidents.

“There’s a lot of trouble over it,” Poulin said. “Nothing major yet, but it could happen very quickly.”