Uniformed officers from multiple police agencies are cracking down on high-risk drivers in multiple locations across Metro Vancouver on Thursday.
The annual enforcement campaign, called Project Swoop, targets speeders in areas identified as having compliance issues.
This year, officers from Surrey, Delta and Langley have selected Highway 10, the Ladner Trunk and Langley Bypass Corridor.
“The goal of today is for us to be highly visible within the community and take enforcement action to target people that are conducting high-risk driving behaviour,” Cpl. Vanessa Munn told Global News.
“Distracted driving is unsafe driving, passing people, not using proper distance when changing lanes — all of those things increase the risk of serious collisions.”
Project Swoop involves both officers and civilian speed-checking volunteers along Highway 10. The corridor — “long, wide and flat” — is an area of frequent speeding, Munn added.
According to ICBC, a partner in Project Swoop, speeding is the leading cause of crash fatalities in the province. About 27 people die due to speed-related collisions in the Lower Mainland every year.
“It’s a busy corridor, a lot of people travelling from community to community, so it’s a corridor where we do see a lot of crashes that occur,” said Joanne Bergman, road safety co-ordinator for ICBC.
The numbers of accidents have gone up since folks started returning to in-person work, she added, and tend to increase during the summer as well.