10 Opinion Sparky Dundee Guest Contributor pm George city council recently made a unanimous decision to increase the tax rate charged to motels, hotels, and bed & breakfasts from 2% to 3%. The announcement was made along with a statement that this move was made to “remain competitive in local markets” and to raise money to fund “major sporting events” and “conventions”. In case any readers have never been around the city, companies are not scrambling to come to Prince George. Northern Fancon last year was only brought to Prince George due to the intervention of the fans themselves, and very little actually went on with the city, aside from finding a venue that would fit. Cities like Kamloops have numerous buildings that are actually labeled as Convention Centres, and they have many many conventions every year. Kamloops is more centralized, being generally closer to provincial hubs like the greater Vancouver area. Students will certainly remember the Canada Winter Games. Prince George has not had a major sporting event before or since. If one were to visit the Tourism PG website, they can read the paragraph about how Prince George is a major sport destination worldwide, and even hosted the 2015 Canada Winter Games, but no mention whatsoever is present about any other sporting events that have ever been in Prince George. With these points in mind, the $400,000 projected to be raised on an annual basis is not sufficient to build any additional venues to host either major conventions or major sporting events. Another major problem that prevents many businesses as well as sports enthusiasts from visiting Prince George is our road quality. While roads are repaved every year, analysis by independent engineers has revealed that Prince George does not allow sufficient curing time for the pavement to harden sufficiently before vehicles are allowed to drive on the newly paved surfaces. This is a mistake that is costing the city millions of dollars every Competitive [Rites year and would be far cheaper to fix than to continue with the current scheme of things. Another concern is in examining the wording of the statement that went with this decision: “to stay competitive in today’s markets”. Perhaps monetary decisions have not been faced by some of the readers, but when shopping at two stores offering similar quality products one will typically prefer to buy from the outlet that has a lower price and not from the higher priced location. Competition in markets is not achieved by every store, business, and outlet offering similar products at identical prices. A good example of competition comes from Costco opening a gas station in Prince George, when they posted gasoline prices at least $.5/litre less than the going rate. Suddenly, gas stations all around Prince George were engaging in a price war to win back customers that had shifted to lower priced stations due to competition. As gas stations near to Costco decreased their prices to match Costco, Costco stuck its metaphorical tongue out and dropped their price further. Since that point, gas prices are now closer to what they should be, although still quite far off, but stations farther from Costco have reverted back to all charging the same price because they have no concept of what competitive pricing is. The College of New Caledonia announces every time it increases its tuition rates that they are increasing the rates to remain competitive as well, but critical analysis of competitive pricing shows that people are less likely to pay higher rates because in the current markets, there is not much extra money available to spend on frivolous things. Constantly increasing prices serves no purpose except to exclude certain groups of people from being able to afford the necessities of life. I do not know what they teach in business classes these days, but excluding groups from a market does not increase sales. Dangerous Roads Sparky Dundee Guest Contributor rince George used to be a city comparable to most other cities with the exception of large urban centres like Toronto, Vancouver or Montreal. In this sense, “comparable” refers to in regards to the safety of driving on the roads, or being a pedestrian on the roads without fear of being run over by distracted, inebriated or just plain unprepared drivers. Twenty years ago, the speed limit was the speed limit and few people ever exceeded it in city limits as well as on the highway. Driving across Canada showed that in most places with a few small isolated areas this was the case. Isolated areas around Edmonton, or Brandon, Manitoba saw drivers that never seemed to blink and sat hunched over the steering wheel with a near constant grimace, but driving through these areas would yield roads that were safer where the law was respected. At some point in the last twenty years, drivers started taking unnecessary risks and driving far in excess of the speed limit, using turn signals only when police were near, and shoulder checking only if forced to in a driving test. This assumed belief that everyone is responsible for their own safety has led to countless deaths of people both in and out of vehicles because a driver just couldn’t remove their foot from the gas pedal, or deciding that being high on the road actually made them a safer driver. Countless scientific studies have shown the error of this thinking, but we have also entered into an era when opinion is deemed to be more valuable than scientifically proven facts. A common complaint is that driving the speed limit is too slow and takes forever to get to a destination, but this has been proven incorrect. With good route planning, time trials have been administered featuring drivers speeding as well as driving the speed limit. The last trial conducted showed an identical time required to drive a set distance at the speed limit versus 10 km/h over for the duration by avoiding more congested routes Opinion and using established shortcuts. This is partially due to the fact that speeding does not eliminate traffic lights, so the route chosen with fewer traffic lights will enable a driver to go farther without having to stop. A further problem associated with this belief that problems are caused by everyone else, and refusing to take responsibility of one’s own actions has led to the police being less likely to give warnings when pulling drivers over, but also a likelihood of police not pulling over a dangerous driver until their driving is beyond hazardous due to the fear of that driver wanting to fight a ticket that is well deserved. Police have busy schedules, and every minute removed from their day to go to court and enforce proper driving etiquette is time they could be using to solve real crimes. Distracted driving has gotten so prolific with modern cell phones that there has been a law in BC for several years making it illegal to use cell phones while driving because drivers spend more time looking at the screen than the road. This behaviour has killed countless people of all age groups across the globe, and countless drivers as well that should have known speeding down a road without looking at it is a good way to kill someone. If a professional driver were to put ona blindfold and push the pedal to the metal while barreling down a busy highway, people would be calling for their removal from the road. Why then is it any different for a non professional driver to stare at a phone screen while racing down city streets? Dead is dead regardless of the circumstances of a vehicle crash. The Bible calls for “an eye for an eye” so maybe drivers that kill people on the road should be executed in the same way that they killed. This would be a fast route to making the roads safer although there would be much complaining by people that don’t think this is fair.