Fatal highway crashes prompt increased OPP patrols

The deaths of seven teenagers in two crashes on northern highways Jan. 3 is part of the reason behind an OPP initiative to step up their enforcement on highways across the province.

“With those two crashes alone, seven young lives were lost,” according to Acting Superintendent Mark Andrews of the Ontario Provincial Police's highway safety division in the northeast. “The promise of what could they have been is gone for no reason.”

There has been an unusually large number of deaths on the province's highways in the first few weeks of 2012, according to a press release from the OPP.

Seventeen people have died in highway crashes in Ontario since the start of January, more than double the amount of people who lost their lives during the same period last year.

The OPP will be targeting the “big four” high-risk driving behaviours — aggressive driving, distracted driving, impaired driving and occupants not wearing safety restraints.

“The OPP is committed to addressing this disturbing start to the year with heightened education and enforcement,” Chief Superintendent Don Bell, commander of the OPP's highway safety division, said in the press release.

“We will be relentless in our approach. We will use every available means at our disposal to stem this needless loss of lives.”

The other thing the OPP will be looking out for is people not taking the weather conditions into account when driving, Andrews said.

In the case of the fatal Jan. 3 crashes, the drivers, who were inexperienced, didn't know how to compensate for the weather conditions, he said.

“We just need to really be aware of (weather conditions) and drive accordingly,” Andrews said.

He also advises people to start having discussions with their family, friends and co-workers about safe driving habits.

“People just need to really think about their driving behaviour, because it's killing people,” he said.

Many of the recent fatal highway crashes involved drivers not driving according to the weather conditions, according to Deputy Commissioner Larry Beechey, the OPP's provincial commander of traffic safety and operational support.

“Ontario's winters can make for some of the most challenging driving in Canada,” he said, in the press release. “Road conditions in the winter are predictable, yet drivers of all ages are often taken by surprise. Slow down. Drive as if your life depended on it, because it does.”

If having more OPP on the highways gets people to slow down or avoid passing another car in a risky manner, “then we're effective,” Andrews said.

Andrews said four people have also died in snowmobile collisions since the beginning of 2012. He said the OPP will also be increasing their patrols on snowmobile trails.

Posted by Arron Pickard