Nearly 140 driving-related charges were handed out to motorists over the weekend during traffic enforcement blitzes on Hwy. 401 and 402, Middlesex OPP said Monday.
Police said officers were monitoring the roadways for speeding and other forms of aggressive driving.
Of the 138 charges laid as a result of the initiatives, all but one was for speeding, police said, noting the other charge was for stunt driving.
“We hope that enforcement action against these motorists now will prevent a catastrophe in the future — for them and other motorists,” police said in a statement.
According to the MTO Handbook, the risk of death or serious injury is nearly five times greater for vehicles that crash at 50 km/h or more above the speed limit on a highway with a posted limit of 100 km/h.
Statistics released last fall by the OPP found that nearly 93 per cent of all fatalities on OPP-patrolled roads from 2011 to 2015 were preventable. Of the 1,507 road deaths reported, police said 1,400 were attributable to one of the “big four” factors — speeding, distracted driving, aggressive driving, and failure to wear a seatbelt.
Inattentive driving was a factor in the most number of deaths at 408, police said, followed by speeding at 336, failure to wear a seatbelt at 335, and impaired driving at 321.
– With files from Matthew Trevithick
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