RCMP traffic services in Prince George wants to reduce the rate of collisions by five to 10 per cent in the next year at the most dangerous intersections.
ICBC provided 2013 collision numbers to determine where the worst offences occurred. In 2013, 21 per cent of all collisions occurred at these locations and 21 of all casualties occurred there, too.
"The traffic services section of Prince George municipal detachment is committed to reducing collisions at these high-frequency locations," said Sgt. Matt LaBelle, non commission officer in charge of traffic services.
There are five high-risk behaviours that contributed to injuries resulting from collisions at these intersections including speeding, impaired driving, distracted driving, seatbelt use and intersection-related violations.
"The officers in the traffic services section will be focusing on those five high-risk behaviours at our top 10 locations in order to reduce the number of collisions that are occurring in our city," said LaBelle. "We'll also be focusing our efforts at other locations as trends continue."
Enforcement won't necessarily take place at the intersection but will focus on those high-risk behaviours, he added.
"We're aware that sometimes our police presence can sometimes increase distracted driving and also increase collisions because of people merging to get around us,"said LaBelle. "So we're not necessarily going to be in those intersections but in those corridors around the intersections."
High-risk driving is one of the recent road safety campaigns presented by ICBC.
"We'd like to focus on those activities, particularly around intersections, because we know 60 per cent of crashes happen at intersections," said Diana Pozer, road safety coordinator for ICBC. "We have to think of the volume of traffic at all of these top 10 high-crash areas and think of all of the different activities happening there. All the different habits that people have - maybe tailgating, maybe speeding or ignoring the traffic signals and improper passing - all those sort of things are high-risk driving. We also have to think about our vulnerable road users that are also in that area, the cyclists, the motorcyclists, and pedestrians. There's many, many conflicts at these particular intersections so this is something we always continue to focus on."
RCMP would also like the public's help to enforce laws and recommend when someone sees a dangerous or impaired driver to pull over and call 911.
The top 10 crash sites in Prince George are:
- Highway 16 at Domano and Tyner Boulevards.
- Highway 97 at Central Street and 15th Avenue.
- Highway 16 and Ferry Avenue.
- Highway 16 and Highway 97
- 15th Ave. at Patricia Boulevard. and Victoria Street.
- 20th Ave. at Victoria Street.
- Highway 16 at Konrath and Westgate Roads.
- 15th Ave. at Ospika Boulevard.
- 20th Ave. at 17th Carney Street and Massey Drive.
- Highway 16 at Cowart and Vance Roads.
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