Two months into a campaign targeting Ottawa’s speeders, street racers and stunt drivers, police say they’ve handed out nearly 2,000 tickets for speed-related offences on roads in the nation’s capital.
Police first announced Operation Overwatch, a campaign looking to nab drivers taking advantage of Ottawa streets left emptier than usual amid the novel coronavirus pandemic, at the start of May.
The Ottawa Police Service (OPS) said then that officers had identified drivers travelling more than 60 km/h over the speed limit in some areas of the city.
On Monday, the OPS traffic case manager Twitter account said the campaign had resulted in more than 1,975 tickets being handed out over the past nine weeks.
“Too many” of those tickets were related to drivers going more than 30 to 50 km/h over the posted speed limit, according to the tweet.
The OPS speeding operation is expected to continue into July, while another campaign cracking down on noisy vehicles and stunt racers is just shifting into high gear.
The traffic case manager account said 437 tickets related to street racing and unnecessary noise have been handed out as part of Operation #Noisemaker since mid-June.
The campaign has also resulted in eight charges of stunt-driving and six criminal charges.
The Noisemaker campaign targets excessive and unnecessary vehicle noise in the city.