Over 50 charges laid in traffic safety blitz

ERIN – On June 2 members of the Wellington County OPP Traffic Management Unit conducted a targeted traffic enforcement initiative here.

“This traffic safety initiative was a direct result of community concerns regarding unsafe driving behaviours occurring in the community,” states an OPP press release.

Recently, officers conducted several “Blackcat” speed studies to identify areas where speeding and aggressive driving were occurring. Black Cat speed detection devices inconspicuously measure the speed of traffic through a given area over the course of several days or weeks.

Police officers conducted strict speed enforcement in several complaint areas. In addition, an officer specializing in commercial vehicle inspections assisted with identifying unsafe vehicles.

As a result of the initiative, Wellington OPP laid 52 charges for a wide variety of offences, including:

- speeding (24 charges);

- failure to wear seatbelt (four charges);

- insecure load (five charges);

- driving with cannabis readily available (one charge); and

- other Highway Traffic Act (18 charges).

One commercial motor vehicle was taken out of service for critical safety defects and one operator received a three-day driver’s licence suspension in relation to recent drug usage.