RCMP and police officers across the province are holding a high risk driving blitz this month targeting a number of driving offences, including speeding, impaired driving and cell phone use.
Sergeant Chad Badry with West Kootenay Traffic Services said the campaign began with a member of the RCMP West Kootenay Integrated Road Safety Unit who caught an impaired driver in a Warfield school zone. The 38-year-old Trail driver ended up blowing more than twice the criminal limit and will have to appear in court. At the time, RCMP were conducting speed enforcement in the school zone at 3:30PM.
Over the long weekend another impaired driver was caught on Highway 3 near Wilgress Lake. An officer initially gave someone a ride whose vehicle had broken down and then discovered the vehicle later being illegally towed.
“Someone was towing the broken down vehicle with the driver in the towed vehicle and the person driving the vehicle that was towing it was impaired as well and he lost his license for three months immediately and had his vehicle impounded for 30 days,” explained Sergeant Badry.
He added that both situations could have been disastrous and luckily police officers got the individuals off the road before something bad did happen.
116 violation tickets have been handed out so far during the campaign. Another big ticket was for speeding.
“The highest speed that we’ve got was more than 60 kilometers over the speed limit,” said Sergeant Badry. “That driver was issued a really expensive excessive speed ticket for $468 and the vehicle was impounded for seven days.”
With summer on the horizon, RCMP want people to be safe by slowing down, leaving the phone alone, driving sober, wearing a seatbelt, and obeying all the rules of the road.