British Columbians being urged to slow down on the streets and the slopes

Victoria is leading a push to reduce the speed limit on urban streets to 40 km/h from 50 km/h, and not just in the city that's been dubbed God's Waiting Room.

According to the Victoria Times Colonist, Victoria city council wants to put forward a resolution at September's Union of B.C. Municipalities convention to make 40 km/h the default limit in cities and towns throughout the province.

Coun. Shellie Gudgeon, who's pushing for the change, admits getting the resolution passed will be tough.

"It's a rather divisive issue," Gudgeon told the Times Colonist. "I've probably had the most hate mail [on this] than I've had since I've been elected. It's shocking, actually."

The change would apply to residential streets and not major city arteries. It's aimed at making these roads safer for children, seniors and cyclists who share the road with cars.

The default limit is a provincial standard so municipalities don't have to post speed signs on every road, Gudgeon said. She noted the European Parliament adopted a resolution last year calling for local governments to drop urban limits to 30 km/h (the same as school zones in Canada) as a way of cutting the 31,000 annual road deaths.

“We want seniors and families to reside in downtown Victoria,” Gudgeon told GlobalBC News. “We need to slow down people, let's slow down.”

[ Related: Speed limit signs disappears from Winnipeg streets ]

Lest you think the desire reduce urban speed limits is restricted to the city of the newly wed and nearly dead, GlobalBC noted reduced speed limits have been tested in some Edmonton neighbourhoods, though they've apparently had no impact, so to speak, on traffic-related injuries and deaths.

Vancouver has also cut the speed limit in the Downtown Eastside to 30 km/h, where residents are prone to amble across its busy streets. And last year, Toronto's chief medical officer proposed cutting city speed limits by 10 to 20 km/h to reduce the threat to pedestrians and cyclists, the Toronto Star reported.

And police in Abbotsford, east of Vancouver, released a stark example of what happens when a car travelling the legal limit hits a pedestrian:

A woman who glanced momentarily at her purse when she was driving through an intersection struck a 64-year-old man and tossed him several metres down the road. He suffered leg fractures and serious injuries, the Abbotsford Times reported.

The accident, captured by a home-security camera, could have been much worse, said Const. Ian MacDonald.

"You can see the mom with a couple of toddlers and a baby in a stroller just three feet behind scrambling to get across the road [after the crash], " said MacDonald. "We could have had five fatals in that crosswalk."

Speed isn't just an issue on B.C. roads. Older skiers want a crackdown on careless skiers and snowboarders on the province's ski hills, the Vancouver Sun reports.

[ Related: Details released in fatal ski accident at New Brunswick ski hill ]

Former Vancouver city councillor Peter Ladner, 64, is recovering from leg fractures after being hit by a young skier last month. He's using a wheelchair for now and it could be a year or two before he can get back on the slopes.

“People who are getting on in years, who are still vital to the health of the ski industry, are having second thoughts or final thoughts about going up the mountain," he told the Sun.

The accident has triggered a public debate about the safety of older skiers and extreme-sports enthusiasts among younger skiers and snowboarders, the Sun said.

“People are talking among themselves at Whistler and people are saying they’ve stopped skiing because they don’t want to get hit,” said Ladner, who was hit four years ago and suffered a broken rib.

Collisions with hot-dogging skiers aren't new. My mother suffered a shoulder injury after being hit from behind at an Alberta ski hill 40 years ago.

The Sun reported that today skiing and snowboarding injuries are more than twice as common as hockey-related injuries, according to the Canadian Institute for Health Information, resulting in more than 2,300 hospital admissions in 2011. The figures don't specify if injuries were sustained in collisions.

Whistler Blackcomb safety manager Brian Leighton told the Sun the number of collisions at the famed resort dropped marginally this year. Management handed out 20 short-term suspensions this year for reckless skiing and less than a dozen lost their passes for the year for injuring someone in a collision, he said.