Every year the promise of spring comes with the promise of drivers speeding up to dangerous levels, say peace officers.
“With the spring weather and clearer roads, people tend to travel more quickly,” said Darcy Beaudette, senior enforcement officer with Foothills Patrol. “People feel a little bit more overconfident about what speed they should be doing.”
She said they handed out 127 tickets in April and four were for speeds in excess of 50 kilometres over the speed limit.
“The lowest was 51 kilometres over and the highest was 79 kilometres over,” Beaudette said.
Speeding violations over 50 kilometres per hour require a court appearance.
Beaudette said a person convicted of driving 77 kilometres over the speed limit last fall was convicted in January and was sentenced to a 60-day driving suspension and $800 fine.
Last month peace officers stopped a driver who was driving 139 kilometres in a 60-kilometre zone on 32nd Street near Kayben Farms.
That ticket is currently before the courts.
Drivers who speed excessively endanger everyone on the road, he said.
“Speed often results in motor vehicle accidents that result in brain injuries,” Beaudette said. “It should be a concern to everyone using the roads.”
Death is also a risk when you are driving 150 or 170 kilometres over the speed limit, said Beaudette.
“Speeding is still one of the highest reason for fatalities on the roadways,” he said.
Peace officers monitor all roadways in designated areas, but not primary highways.
Beaudette said secondary highways and rural roads are not engineered for high speeds.
“The risk of a collision on rural roads goes up,” he said. “The narrowness, the surface, whether it is oil or paved – it changes the risk.”
April is deemed speed enforcement month by Alberta Transportation’s office of traffic safety.
Terri Miller, president of the Alberta Association of Community Peace Officers (AACPO), said they put out a press release last week to raise awareness.
“It seems tickets are not making a difference,” she said.
Miller hopes regular drivers will raise the red flag when they hear about the dangers of speeding.
In April, the 41 agencies that report to the AACPO wrote 3,609 tickets with fines of between $78 and $2,000.
Miller is not sure how many of those speeding tickets were in excess of 50 kilometres, but said it is typical to see those types of violations.
“We are seeing that 60, 70 and 80-kilometre range every month,” she said.
There are more hazards to speeding on secondary highways, rural roads and gravel roads, she said.
“They are not as wide, sometimes there are no shoulders, there are ditches, there is more farm equipment,” said Miller.
It is also difficult for residents trying to pull out from a side road or a driveway to judge how fast an excessively speeding vehicle is approaching, she said.
