Fatal collision calls up 50 per cent last year in Waterloo Region

Regional police responded to an increasing number of calls for fatal and major injury collisions last year with crashes that killed people jumping up by 50 per cent from 2023, and major injury collisions rising by 32 per cent.

Officials also reported that 46 per cent of fatal collisions that happened last year occurred within the townships. Of the stunt driving charges laid last year, 36 per cent happened on rural roads.

During the most recent Waterloo Region Police Services Board meeting on Feb. 19, Staff Sergeant Scott Griffiths said the service plans to enforce efforts on rural roads more for 2025.

“Forty per cent of those collisions of fatalities were linked to the fatal four offences. Fatal four offences being impaired driving, aggressive driving, seatbelt use and distracted driving,” said Griffiths.

“We’re going to continue our enforcement efforts in our rural townships because as we know from our statistics a significant number of road safety collisions as well as offences occur in those rural townships.”

A small one per cent decrease came in the total number of road safety charges laid last year compared to 2023. There was also a slight decrease in stunt driving charges in the region by seven per cent.

Impaired driving was found to be a factor in three out of 15 fatal collisions as well but there was also a 13 per cent decrease in impaired driving charges.

“Our primary goals this year is to reduce major injury collisions and fatalities by strategically targeting the key issues causing them which we found to be the fatal four offences,” said Griffiths.

“We’ve set a goal to increase our proactive road safety enforcement numbers by 15 per cent over 2024 statistics, with a primary focus on the fatal four offences.”

To reduce those numbers, regional police plan to expand the use of new technology such as automated license plate readers and black cat; a road safety survey device.