Ontario police issue 618 speeding tickets over the weekend; time for tougher penalties, OTA says

TORONTO (Aug. 7, 2001) — Following a long-weekend police crackdown on speeding, Ontario Trucking Association David Bradley called on other road user groups such as the Canadian Automobile Association to join him in asking the Ontario government for tougher penalties for drivers who speed or drive aggressively.

Some 618 drivers were charged with speeding during the three-day-long Civic Holiday weekend in Ontario. Police on “cottage patrol” targeted motorists headed to vacation homes and beach areas north and east of Toronto. The next blitz is scheduled for the Labour Day weekend.

“The results clearly show that many drivers just aren’t getting the message. The only answer is tougher enforcement,” Bradley said in a press release calling for increased fines and demerit points for speeding, and for support from the CAA, which has been critical of the trucking industry’s road safety record and has been reluctant to lobby for increased fines for speeders.

Under current Ontario law, demerit points are only awarded for speed violations of greater than 15 km per hour. As a result, he said, drivers caught at 25, 35, or 40 km/h over the limit try to get the police to knock the ticket down to below 15 km/h, and often succeed. “If all speeding violations were pointed then the excessive speeders might slow down.”

Bradley said better trucking companies already do their part by installing speed governors on their vehicles, monitoring truck speed by satellite, and using driver incentives and sanctions. He noted that in Ontario, every speeding violation by a truck driver is posted on the trucking company’s Commercial Vehicle Operators Registration (CVOR) record, which is in a sense the demerit point system for trucking companies.