The RCMP will be focusing on intersections this month, looking for red light runners, speeders and people following too close.
The campaign is part of a broader provincial effort where police agencies focus on specific traffic problems every month with an aim at reducing collisions, injuries and deaths.
Cpl. Don Murray, head of the St. Albert traffic section, said making intersections safer is very important in St. Albert.
“It is particularly relevant in St. Albert. We have some very busy intersections with high volumes of traffic and we frequently have collisions at some of our major intersections.”
Murray said city statistics show 70 per cent of all collisions in town happen at intersections.
Over the past few years, intersections along St. Albert Trail at Boudreau, McKenney, Hebert and St. Anne have proven the most problematic. Murray said that hasn’t changed recently.
In terms of enforcement this month, Murray said the detachment will focus on speeding, running red lights and people who don’t wear their seatbelt.
Those behaviours are most often involved in creating serious injury collisions and as a result Murray said they get most of the focus.
He said the biggest problems at intersections the RCMP encounters are people making unsafe left turns, people following too close and people pushing through traffic lights.
“When traffic gets busy and congested, people are getting frustrated and they are just trying to run through on late phases of the light and making unsafe left turns,” said Murray. “If you can’t see, don’t go.”
Murray said that might seem like obvious advice, but he sees people making unsafe turns regularly.
“You see people, they get out in the intersection and there is someone right on their tail and they get flustered and they make the turn when it is unsafe to do so.”
Murray said despite the concerns about intersections, 2010 was a good year for the area. There was not a single fatality on city roads, which he said is rare for a city of this size.
