For the first week of May, volunteers with Ritchot Citizens on Patrol have been operating speed reader boards in St. Adolphe, Ste. Agathe, and Île-des-Chênes. The reader boards, provided by Manitoba Public Insurance, are intended to raise awareness about the dangers of speeding.
“Last year was the deadliest year on Manitoba highways in a decade, and some of those crashes were speed-related,” says Ward Keith, MPI’s Vice President of Communications and Loss Prevention. “The goal for 2017 is to make our roadways safer for everyone.”
Keith adds that the hope is for drivers to use the reader boards as opportunities to self-evaluate their speeds and adjust accordingly.
It is estimated that 21 Manitobans are killed, and 600 injured, each year from speed-related accidents.
Marianne Curtis, Coordinator of Ritchot COPP, has firsthand knowledge of the dangers of speeding. “Last summer, we lost two family friends in speed-related accidents, and unfortunately we are not alone in this. There is no greater pain than burying someone you love after they’ve died in a preventable collision, where speed could have made the difference to their survival.”
