Holiday Safety Blitz Ends With The Usual Bad Drivers Hitting The Highways
Posted October 9, 2006 12:00 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
It’s sort of a corollary to the infamous law of gravity about what goes up must come down.
What goes out must come in.
The O.P.P. has seen that all too often this holiday weekend, as their Thanksgiving holiday blitz comes to an end.
Cops have been out for four days straight, looking for speeders, aggressive drivers, non-seat belt users and cars that are ready to fall apart.
They’ve found all that and more, handing out over tickets during the weekend, most for speeding. The fastest and the most irresponsible – a motorist caught blowing through a speed trap at 190 kilometres an hour.
But that’s not what bothers cops the most. It’s the 21 people who were sent to hospital for crash related mishaps – and the one who didn’t make it.
He was the man who was hit while trying to cross Highway 400, an act that’s left police baffled. They believe the man came from a farmer’s field and they have no idea what made him try to cross what’s almost certainly an impassable place for any pedestrian.
“It is an arrestable offence,” proclaims O.P.P. Cst. Dave Woodford. “You’re not to be on the highway as a pedestrian. Stay off the highway. They’re not a safe location to be walking around. Even if you do break down, stay in your vehicle. Help will arrive.”
They were also disappointed to see the usual parade of drunk drivers weaving down the road at high speeds. “They’ve been a scourge all weekend,” complains Sgt. Cam Woolley. “At one point officers arrested five drunk drivers in the same location in 20 minutes.”
And then there was what Woolley often euphemistically calls the “Fred Flinstone cars”, vehicles in such a bad state, you can literally see the ground through the floorboards.
“Look at the hole through the floor,” marvels Cst. Corey Kostyra (top left). “I’m sticking my head through here. This is unbelievable.”
At least 220 cars were taken off the road in the last big blitz of the year. Cops will be back in force with the R.I.D.E. program for the next giant holiday of 2006 – the great Christmas party season.
