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Speed resulting in more injuries on city roads

The Thunder Bay Police Service Traffic Unit released it’s Traffic Management Plan for the next two years, which places emphasis on education and enforcement against impaired driving, speeding, and disqualified drivers
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Thunder Bay Police will be cracking down on impaired and aggressive driving. (File).

THUNDER BAY - The number of motor vehicle collisions on city roads has remained consistent over the last six years but the number of injuries as a result of collisions has spiked in the last year, which has Thunder Bay Police urging motorists to slow down.

Between 2013 and 2018, there was a total of 21,580 motor vehicle collisions in the city and Oliver Paipoonge, with 18 fatal collisions and 2,731 involving injuries, which are classified as any injury that is not fatal. (These statistics do not include numbered highways).

The average number of fatalities over the six years was three and the average number of injuries from 2013 to 2017 was 426. In 2018, the number of collisions involving injuries jumped to 598.

“That is a good indication to us that it is in direct relation to the speed of motor vehicles,” said Traffic Sgt. Gordon Snyder with the Thunder Bay Police Service. “Even an average speed of 5 km/h faster across the board will increase injuries like that. That is what we are attributing it to - that speeds are starting to increase.”

During the Thunder Bay Police Services Board meeting on Tuesday, Snyder presented the Traffic Management Plan for 2019-2020, which outlines five priorities for traffic enforcement including cracking down on impaired drivers, distracted and aggressive driving, removing suspended drivers from city roads, and educational programs for seniors and safe driving.

“Impaired driving is one of the big concerns,” Snyder said. “It’s no surprise that with (marijuana) decriminalization over the past year, impaired by drugs has become popular in the news.”

According to Snyder, there has been an increase in the number of motorists caught impaired by drugs, but he doesn’t believe that is a direct result of legal marijuana, but rather more officers trained in detecting impairment.

“We’ve never had more officers qualified to do impaired and drug impaired investigations as we do today, and that is going to increase this year,” Snyder said.

But impairment is not always the result of illicit or recreational drug use by motorists.

“The other thing with an aging population is prescription medications,” Snyder said. “Somebody can be legally impaired to operate a vehicle by medication that has been prescribed. That’s troubling and that’s a problem. It’s a danger to our roadways.”

Another major concern for police is the number of suspended, unlicensed, or disqualified drivers on city roads.

Snyder said police often see drivers fleeing the scene of a collision because they are a suspended or disqualified driver.

“If your license is suspended or you are disqualified for driving, there is a reason for that, and you should not be on our roadways and we are going to take every measure we can to ensure that you’re not,” he said.

Going forward, the Traffic Management Plan will focus on education and enforcement to help keep roads safe.

The addition of the aerial drone to the traffic unit has benefited officers in collision reconstruction and evidence gathering, Snyder added, and he would like to see the unit take advantage of more technology, including an automatic license plate recognition system.

The system involves a series of cameras mounted to a police cruiser that scans all license plates in a given area. It has been considered in the past but not made it into the Police budget considerations. To outfit one car costs $40,000.

But Snyder said it is a worthwhile investment in keeping motorists safe and getting disqualified and suspended drivers off the road.

“You are scanning hundreds of plates in a short period of time,” Snyder said. “If it is expired or there is an impaired conviction, it will flag it and we will conduct a further investigation at that point.”



Doug Diaczuk

About the Author: Doug Diaczuk

Doug Diaczuk is a reporter and award-winning author from Thunder Bay. He has a master’s degree in English from Lakehead University
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