What was meant to be a focus on impaired driving led to a record number of violations in other areas.
SGI’s May Traffic Safety Spotlight set records for the number of distracted driving, seatbelt, and speeding offences.
The breakdown of offences during the month of May is as follows:
- 1,025 distracted driving offences (including 957 for using a cellphone while driving);
- 697 offences related to seatbelts and car seats;
- 8,884 speeding and aggressive driving offences; and
- 325 impaired driving offences, including 273 Criminal Code charges.
That latter category is the only one that failed to set a Traffic Safety Spotlight record.
SGI describes impairment, driver distraction/inattention, speeding, and not wearing a seatbelt as “the big four” when it comes to traffic fatalities. That is because in 2017, there were 86 collisions that resulted in one or more deaths. All but eight of these incidents involved at least one of these four factors.
June’s Traffic Safety Spotlight will focused on distracted driving.
