According to data recently collected by volunteers from Ritchot’s Citizens on Patrol Program, drivers in Ritchot, including those who may be passing through from neighbouring towns and municipalities, are among the worst speeders in the province.
Twenty-nine citizen groups across the province participated in the Spotlight on Speed week in early May, each group monitoring traffic to track the percentage of drivers exceeding the speed limit.
“Amazingly, in only six days, the number of vehicles monitored was more than one-third of the total vehicles monitored over the entire 2016 year,” says Tracy Douglass, MPI’s Citizens on Patrol Program Provincial Coordinator.
With speed readers set up in Ste. Agathe, St. Adolphe, and Île-des-Chênes, volunteers noted that an astounding 78 percent of drivers failed to heed the speed limit. The provincial average was just 26 percent.
“This year is the first time that the Ritchot COPP participated in this event,” says Ritchot COPP Coordinator Marianne Curtis. “We will be setting up the [speed reader] throughout Île-des-Chênes, Ste. Agathe, and St. Adolphe over the next few months to get more statistics for the RCMP.”
Douglass adds that more than 32,000 vehicles were tracked in this spring’s program.
