“We certainly have to look at what we can do as a police service to be more proactive in responding to the traffic problems in the city,” said Deputy Police Chief Scott Tod.
In the annual report presented to the Police Board by Chief Shawn Devine, a section is included pertaining to traffic collisions in North Bay.
Tod says a recurring theme is the location of the intersections where collisions most frequently happen.
“In the last five years there are some consistencies and this year we’re certainly noticing that it’s the downtown core,” said Tod.
Asked for the reasons for the top collision spots being predominantly downtown, Tod suggests “some of it’s weather-related but a lot of it is driver inattentiveness and not following the rules of the road.”
Tod adds NBPS officers spend a significant portion of their shifts dealing with traffic. Using October 2018 as an example, Tod said, “Our number one call for service is traffic enforcement, number two is motor vehicle collision investigation.”
When asked what steps can be taken to lessen the traffic-related burden on the officers, Tod said “we do have one traffic officer on the service,” who focuses solely on that aspect of policing but NBPS has to look at what we can do to be more proactive in the community when it comes to traffic.
The Deputy Chief said the NBPS is constantly analyzing the data to make improvements for both the community-at-large and the police. “What allows to speed on certain roads? What allows people to not stop at stop signs? What allows people to not follow the traffic signals? That’s a lot of work we have to do still.”
