The Alberta Association of Police Chiefs want to stop excessive speeding and they think they have a solution to do just that.
Recently the association the voted in favour of a resolution that would allow officers to impound for one week vehicles of drivers caught going more than 50 kilometres per hour over the speed limit.
Police officers would also be given the authority to suspend drivers’ licences for the same amount of time, that is if they can convince the new provincial government to make their resolution into law.
It is something Edmonton police chief Rod Knecht has been calling for sometime. He said Edmonton police routinely catch people driving more than 50 km/h past the posted speed limit. According to Edmonton police in the last two years there have been 879 such cases.
Knecht said it isn’t only young people who are speeding excessively. In October, city traffic police arrested the driver of a Hyundai car roaring down a road at 163 km/h in a 100 km/h zone, weaving across lanes of traffic. When officers caught up they found what appeared to be a family of four inside — a 30-year-old man in the driver’s seat, a woman in the front passenger seat and two young children in the back.
That is Edmonton. If the provincial government passed such legislation would rural police detachments have the opportunity to use the legislation? Are there people in towns such as Barrhead driving 50 km/h faster than the posted speed limit. Anyone who regularly listens to a police scanner knows the answer is yes. Justice Minister Jonathan Denis the province is not planning to give police the power to seize vehicles saying so far there isn’t enough evidence to support such a law.
In 2009, the association passed a similar resolution and it was rejected by the government. However proponents for the legislation point to B.C. as proof. Since B.C. passed similar legislation in 2010, B.C.’s Ministry of Justice says the number of fatal and injury-related crashes was cut in half compared to the previous five-year period. Quebec and Ontario also have similar legislation. Would enacting such legislation in Alberta have a similar affect? Possibly. Certainly it is worth further investigation.
