Rookie police chief makes traffic safety a priority

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 12/01/2017 (2678 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It’s going to be back to the future for Winnipeg police traffic officers.

Police Chief Danny Smyth said he’s breaking off the traffic unit from community relations and setting it up as a separate division, which was the case before 2004.

A new division commander will be able to focus on traffic and improving safety. “The last few years, the division commander that was overseeing traffic was also overseeing community relations,” Smyth said Friday after the monthly Winnipeg Police Board meeting.

“My expectation will be some greater co-ordination with some of our partners — people like Manitoba Public Insurance and traffic engineering analysts — so we can come up with a more co-ordinated traffic strategy.”

Surveys conducted for the WPS indicate many Winnipeggers consider safety on the streets a priority, Smyth said, adding police are dealing with an increasing number of traffic fatalities.

Statistics released by MPI Wednesday confirm 2016 was the deadliest year in Manitoba since 2006. Deaths due to drunk driving or not using seatbelts have almost doubled in a single year in Manitoba.

Forty-one of the province’s 112 road fatalities last year were blamed on impaired driving — a statistic almost 100 per cent higher than in 2015. Another 16 fatalities — a jump of more than 100 per cent from 2015 — are due to a lack of seatbelt use.

Smyth said Winnipeggers can expect to see more enforcement, both during the day and at night, targeting distracted and impaired drivers.

In 2016, distracted driving contributed to 15 per cent of fatal car crashes, compared with around 11 per cent in 2015, Manitoba RCMP statistics show.

More people were killed in crashes last year — 110 versus 80 in 2015 — and increasingly, cellphone use is to blame, police officials said.

An average of 28 people are killed each year because of distracted driving in Manitoba, according to MPI statistics, and about 2,500 distracted drivers are involved in collisions annually.

While provincial legislation only deals with cellphone use while driving, MPI has a broader definition of distracted driving, such as eating while driving or having an animated conversation with a passenger.

Smyth said in a report to the police board that the goal is to reduce collisions, fatalities and property damage by 25 per cent.

aldo.santin@freepress.mb.ca