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Highway fatalities down in 2013 in West Kootenay region

In 2013, the West Kootenay Traffic Services and West Kootenay Integrated Road Safety Unit had a very busy year.
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RCMP

West Kootenay Traffic Services, which is a division of the RCMP and patrols the highways from Nelson to Beaverdale to the top of Salmo/Creston, released their annual report for 2013.

In 2013, the West Kootenay Traffic Services and West Kootenay Integrated Road Safety Unit had a very busy year. We unfortunately had nine fatalities in the area. Of these nine fatalities, two were alcohol related and two were pedestrian fatalities.  The other causal factors were speed, mechanical or distracted driving. Our condolences go out to the families and friends who lost loved ones.

Drinking and driving, seatbelt and distracted driving are leading factors in serious or fatal collisions.

This year 90 impaired drivers were taken of the road and 120 suspensions were issued in the West Kootenay Boundary area. The units served 1,430 seatbelt tickets and 325 distracted driving charges (cell phone). Drug possession seems to be on the rise with 500 drug seizures. Excessive speed charges, which goes with a seven day seizure of the vehicle, is also on the rise with 63 seizures. The units served over 7,300 violation tickets.

“Unfortunately, we increased by three fatalities over last year,” Cpl. John Ferguson said to the Gazette. “However, if you average everything out, we’re averaging 6-10 fatalities a year in the last five years. Which is good, because 10 years ago we were up at 23-25 fatalities each year.”

The West Kootenay Traffic and IRSU units are striving to reduce crashes and injuries to our motoring public by enforcement and education in high crash areas.  We urge all people to slow down, buckle up, stay off the cell phone and get a designated driver. The consequences of an impaired driving charge financially and emotionally on an individual are tremendous.

“Through enforcement, through education, we believe, and other factors such as cars becoming better equipped, through all those and heavy fines we are seeing less and less fatalities,” said Cpl. Ferguson.

Cpl. Ferguson said the rise in drug possessions is troubling. He said they’re also seeing a rise in impaired driving even though the number of deaths from impaired is going down.

“We’re still getting impaired drivers and we’d love to see that go away,” he said.

I know it’s difficult sometimes to get home with only one taxi in Grand Forks, said Cpl. Ferguson. “However, The devastation financially if you get an impaired or a roadside prohibition is huge. You can imagine in a place like Grand Forks or Winlaw or Midway to have your driver’s licence taken away for 90 days is a huge loss, not just in inconvenience but you could lose your job, you could lose everything. We’re seeing an improvement but it’s still there.”