Kamloops This Week
As RCMP officers enforced a campaign centred on the provincial “slow down, move over” legislation, they counted the number of vehicles they weren’t able to stop because they were so busy with those they had pulled over.
As they wrote out tickets for 179 drivers, they watched another 1,090 violators drive by, said Cpl. Bernie Parent of the Central Interior integrated road-safety unit.
The campaign on Friday, Sept. 27, involved 14 officers from his unit, along with officers from the Central Interior traffic services units in Kamloops, Clearwater, Ashcroft and Merritt, along with four officers from the commercial-vehicle safety enforcement unit.
The team set up on Highway 5 between Kamloops and Heffley Creek, on Highway 1 east of Kamloops, on the Coquihalla Highway from Kamloops to Merritt and on Highway 97C between Merritt and Kelowna.
The legislation being enforced came into effect in 2009 and was designed to protect personnel who work on the highways.
It was drafted in response to the death of a tow-truck operator in Vernon in 2006.
The law requires drivers to reduce their speed to 70 km/h if the highway posted speed is 80 km/h or higher and to 40 km/h on highways where the limit is lower than 80 km/h.
It also requires drivers who see stopped official vehicles move to a lane that is not adjacent to or containing the vehicles, if possible.
Tickets written during the blitz included:
• 102 charges for failing to slow down for an official vehicle, which results in a $173 fine;
• 53 charges of failing to move over for an official vehicle, which also has a $173 fine;
• Five charges of going 41 km/h or more over the posted speed limit, which has a $368 fine;
• 14 charges for speeding but going less than 20 km/h over the posted limit, which has a $138 fine;
• Three charges of speeding between 21 km/h and 40 km/h over the posted speed limit, which has a $198 fine;
• One charge of driving with no insurance, which results in a $598 fine;
• One drug seizure.