Some staggering numbers coming out of Essex County following a Canada Day long weekend traffic campaign by Ontario Provincial Police.
The campaign across the OPP’s West Region, which ran from June 26 until July 5, highlighted the importance of lifesaving equipment like seatbelts, helmets, and personal flotation devices.
Police also focused their education and enforcement efforts on discouraging unsafe driving behaviours, such as speeding, distracted driving, and impaired driving.
Officers in Essex County laid 432 speeding charges, the most in the West Region. A total of 1,828 speeding charges were laid by officers with the 13 detachments across the West Region.
Community Engagement Officer for Essex County OPP Constable Stephanie Caron says with the number of speeding charges laid, drivers are still not getting the hint.
“We do have an incredible area to cover here in Essex County, but unfortunately people are still just really rushing to get to where they want to go, and that’s never a good thing,” says Caron. “We want people to arrive safely, obviously, so we’re going to keep out there and keep on enforcing.”
Essex County officers also laid 11 distracted driving charges, also the most in the West Region.
Caron says the OPP wants drivers to concentrate on the roads.
“I’m amazed, obviously, when I’m off-duty, the amount of people you still see being distracted first and foremost at their cell phones,” says Caron. “So we want to keep on getting the message out there to people: this is a very dangerous activity to perform while you’re driving.”
Out of the 102 impaired driving charges, 13 were in Essex County, the second most in the West Region.
Caron says when it comes to impaired driving, the OPP will continue to educate the public and motorists but adds officers will not tolerate it; there’s no forgiveness, and charges will be laid.
“We have increased the volume of people visiting our area, so obviously activities are increased whether people are having parties at their homes or they’re going out to different establishments and drinking and driving,” she says.
There were 74 seatbelt charges laid locally, also the most in the West Region.
Officers also laid two charges dealing with personal flotation devices.
In all, the officers in the West Region laid 304 charges for failure to wear a seatbelt, 17 personal flotation device charges, and 39 distracted driving charges.