Waterloo Regional Police handed out nearly 800 traffic violations during Canada Road Safety Week.
Sgt. John Nymann said the seven-day campaign was focused on spotting the “fatal four,” which includes impaired driving, drivers using cellphones while operating vehicles, aggressive driving and no seatbelts.
READ MORE: Ontario’s police watchdog investigating after woman hit by car during arrest in Kitchener
Included in the 789 violations were 294 aggressive driving charges and 17 seatbelt charges while 84 people were caught using a handheld device while driving.
“We need motorists to understand that their behaviour on the road doesn’t just affect them,” Chief Bryan Larkin said in a statement. “It affects everyone they share the road with. It is vital that we all work together to keep our roads safe so we can save lives and reduce injuries.”
A year earlier, the campaign saw 704 charges handed out. The biggest jump year-over-year was in motorists using a handheld device while driving, as only 34 people were busted in 2017.
Get breaking National news
“When we conduct focused enforcement it only takes a few moments before we get someone on their cellphone,” Nymann said, describing the situation as being problematic.
“Regularly truck drivers and folks driving bigger vehicles are telling us, ‘hey, I see this all the time.’”
READ MORE: DNA technology sketches suspect in unsolved child sex assaults in Kitchener, Waterloo
Nymann was also startled by the number of people who were caught driving while impaired as the number increased from 14 in 2017 to 33 in 2018.
“It’s a little disconcerting that it over doubled over the last year,” he said. “There’s so much messaging that the media and us, as a police service, team up to bring out in our society — you watch TV and listen to the radio and there is so much messaging yet here it is.”
Comments