Hamilton police launch new traffic safety unit
A new Hamilton police dedicated traffic unit is up and running, with officers trained to focus on serious issues on streets across the city.
The traffic safety unit (TSU) has 20 officers working out of central station, including eight new officers funded through the 2021 police budget.
“Traffic issues transcend regions,” said Insp. Paul Evans, who oversees all Hamilton police traffic departments, including collision reconstruction and breath technicians.
The idea for the new unit is to have a specialized team of officers that have the agility to respond to major issues anywhere in the city. This doesn’t mean that patrol officers will stop traffic enforcement and community complaints will continue to go through the divisions. But if an issue needs to be escalated it can go to the TSU.
The team is made up of 19 constables, including a traffic safety co-ordinator who looks at city crash data, and a sergeant, who supervises the team, Evans said. Where the team deploys each day will be largely based on where that data shows they are most needed.
Each day the team is split between officers tasked to work enforcement and crashes. The crash teams will respond to serious collisions, but are also available for enforcement when there are no crashes.
Minor crashes will continue to see patrol officers responding. And the most serious crashes — those involving fatalities or potential fatalities — are investigated by the highly specialized collision reconstruction unit (CRU). The traffic unit mandate falls in between.
Decades ago Hamilton had a centralized traffic unit, but back in 1990s, when there was a trend in policing to decentralize, it was pushed out to the divisions, Evans said. Over time it became clear that there were traffic issues that crossed regions. A year ago he was asked by Chief Eric Girt, who announced his retirement in December and who worked in traffic earlier in his career, to put together a proposal.
“We can have anything going on the city and the No. 1 complaint is traffic complaints,” Evans said.
As the population in Hamilton has grown, so too has the number of vehicles on the road. Amid restrictions and states of emergency during the pandemic there has also been a shift in traffic that police say has led to fewer vehicles on the roads, but higher speeds.
With the new TSU there are teams working on major traffic issues seven days a week. Major issues for the team to tackle include aggressive and stunt driving, speeding, pedestrian and cyclist safety, distracted driving, commercial vehicles and impaired driving.
The officers in the new unit are trained to investigate collisions, but not to the same level as collision reconstruction. In the past it’s been a challenge when an investigator leaves the collision reconstruction unit because it takes a lot of training to get to that level, Evans said. A benefit of the traffic safety unit is that it’s a training ground for collision reconstruction. Its officers will assist collision reconstruction in investigations.
Evans said the eight new officers for the unit were hired last fall and spent a bit of time working in the divisions, before moving to TSU in January. It was a soft rollout, with the service figuring out schedules and equipment, including the unit’s own marked SUVs. Now it is fully operational.