The G-20 summit in Toronto and the Vancouver Olympics had a fatal effect on northern B.C.'s roads, according to local police.
After steady improvement over recent years, there was a sudden spike during 2010 in the number of people killed and injured on northern roads in incidents related to impaired driving and non-use of seatbelts. Alcohol and seatbelt misuse are symptoms, according to senior officials, of police absenteeism.
"It [Olympics, G-20 summit and holiday flurry] diminished my ability to put a full complement out on the roads. That was a long time to keep up the enforcement and the public visibility with a partial team," said Staff Sgt. Pat McTiernan, in charge of the provincial RCMP units in Prince George's surrounding region.
It was made worse when, following the end of those intensive events, the RCMP's national freeze on taking holidays was lifted. There was a flurry of Mounties taking time off.
These new statistics only show, said the region's top traffic cop, how motorists need consistent police attention.
"There must be a fear of apprehension by the public to maintain their good driving habits," said RCMP Insp. Eric Brewer, commander of traffic policing across B.C.'s north.
"We notice that regularly," McTiernan agreed.
"If we work a speed-concerned area for a period of time we see the speeds there decrease to a reasonable level. But if we decreased our attention on that segment of highway, then go back to it again later, we see a massive increase has happened, both in the speed itself and in the number of speeders. If we don't connect the education with the visibility on the highway and the enforcement, it is amazing the effect."
The worst, he said, is Highway 16 between Edmonton and Prince George. Without regular patrols, the speeds in that corridor creep up between 150 and 170 kilometres per hour among the worst offenders, and a spike in the overall number of drivers who break the posted speed limit.
When a pronounced police presence takes place, the worst offenders drop down to 110 or 120 kph and the overall majority of drivers keep to the posted limits.
The prime example of the tie between enforcement and deterrence is the effect from the Immediate Roadside Prohibition rules put in place a year ago.
The rules of impaired driving stayed the same, but the penalties became immediate and consequential. In a single year there was a 60 per cent drop in the number of people killed in alcohol-related crashes in northern B.C.
That improvement goes along with a record improvement in the seatbelt category as well. There had been marked declines almost every year from 2002, except for the jump in 2010. One year later, with a regular police presence restored, the number dropped down to only 11 fatalities with seatbelts as a factor.
"Alcohol was a large component of our overall death rate, and we saw that alcohol use and seatbelt non-use were linked, so targeting these areas together was a natural," said Brewer.
McTiernan said the number of dead and injured would likely never get to zero, but lives are being saved and there was still room for improvement, especially if the public continued to agree with the message.
"Read the back of your license. It is not yours. It does not belong to you," he said. "It belongs to the Superintendent of Motor Vehicles and if he [Steve Martin] doesn't like the way you are using his license he will take it away from you for a period of time. A lot of people talk about 'their right to drive' but you don't have that right. It is a privilege.
"The rights belong to the family sharing the road with you - their right to get home safely from the grocery store or the swimming lessons or the school."
