Long weekend brings blitz
Posted Jul 30, 2011 06:17:50 AM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Provincial police are promising to crack down on dangerous drivers this long weekend.
But along with looking for the usual speeders, agressive or drunk drivers and those not wearing seatbelts, officers will also be watching for motorists who fail to move over for emergency vehicles.
OPP Sergeant Dave Woodford says there are two important pieces to the legislation. The first mandates that drivers make room for emergency vehicles en route to an emergency. The second part — and the piece that police are now trying to raise awareness about — is that drivers need to exercise caution when passing emergency vehicles at the scene of a collision or even at a roadside stop for a moving violation.
“The law requires you to slow down and proceed by the emergency vehicles with caution. On a multi-lane highway, if you can do so safely, move over a lane,” Woodford says in an interview with 570’s Gary Doyle. “That allows us to do our job safely and not have to worry about getting hit by a vehicle.”
In partnership with the Ministry of Transportation of Ontario and other police services, the OPP will conduct an educational campaign to make motorists aware of their obligations from July 25 to 31. From August 1 to 7, OPP officers will conduct a focussed enforcement campaign aimed squarely at drivers who continue to violate this law.
Those violations come at a price.
“The penalty is three demerit points and a fine of $400-$2000 for a first offense,” Woodford says. “And it grows with each additional offense.”
OPP officers will be out in force throughout the holiday weekend targeting the “big four” : aggressive driving, lack of driver and passenger restraints, driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs, and distracted driving.
Last year, the OPP laid more than 9,000 charges over the Civic Holiday weekend with almost 5,800 being for speeding and racing charges on roads and highways.
Five people were killed in motor vehicle collisions.
