Higher chance of crashing during long weekend: SGI

Long weekends lead to increased traffic on highways — which means there is a larger chance of getting into an accident, SGI says.

“You’re more likely to be involved in a collision while travelling on a long weekend than any other time during the year. And if alcohol is involved, those chances actually double,” SGI’s Marie Schultz said.

Last year there were 228 collisions on the August long weekend, resulting in 53 injuries and one death. Thirteen of those collisions involved alcohol and/or drugs.

SGI defines long weekends as four days usually lasting from Friday to Monday. In 2016, there were 2,667 long weekend crashes, which accounted for 9.2 per cent of all crashes for the year. There were fewer crashes per day on long weekends — 72.1 compared to 79.9 per day in non-long weekend periods. According to SGI, though, when studied over a longer time period and with risk calculated in, you are more likely to be in a collision on a long weekend.

“The chances are higher because there’s more people out there, and because it’s a long weekend, people are gone for a longer period of time as well. And you might have more distractions in the vehicle with you over a long weekend,” Schultz said.

SGI asks people to not drive impaired or let friends drive impaired, to not use a cellphone while driving, to always wear a seatbelt and to slow down for construction zones, even if workers aren’t present.

Schultz said SGI is not seeing a decrease in monthly impaired driving numbers since the government increased the penalties for drinking and driving.