Traffic deaths drop by 38%

Strategic enforcement and tough new laws helped the RCMP drive Lower Mainland traffic fatalities down by 38 per cent last year, police say.

There were 97 traffic fatalities in the RCMP Lower Mainland-policed areas in 2010, and 60 fatalities in 2011. In 2005, across the whole Lower Mainland, there were 181 traffic fatalities, police say, and only 85 in 2011.

Supt. Norm Gaumont, head of Traffic Services for the RCMP in the Lower Mainland, said the RCMP started to turn the corner on unsafe roads back in the late 1990s. At that time police did not keep track of where serious accidents were happening.

Accident locations were logged and databases were built up, and the RCMP learned to target enforcement in dangerous areas, Gaumont said.

Fatalities have been dropping since 2005, but the reduction last year after the introduction of tough new drunkdriving legislation is the most dramatic yet, Gaumont said.

“We saw a 50-per-cent reduction in alcohol-related deaths [last year],” Gaumont said.