Police, ministry urge drivers to be prepared with winter on

Yorkregion.com
Nov. 17, 2014
By Laura Finney

Winter weather is here and that means drivers have to be prepared.

“The OPP is very vocal in making sure people are aware snow is coming,” said Sgt. Kerry Schmidt with the Ontario Provincial Police Highway Safety Division. “People need to be prepared and understand that winter weather brings a whole new set of challenges.”

Last year there were more than 33,000 road collisions on OPP patrolled roads.

Poor driving behaviour, not poor road conditions or bad weather, were the causes in many of those accidents, Schmidt said.

“They are all preventable. People are not adjusting their driving behaviours,” he said.

The OPP will be working closely with the Transportation Ministry to ensure roads are kept as safe as possible during the winter, but the OPP admits it can’t do it alone.

“No other road safety partner can have as strong an influence on reducing the number of collisions during winter as drivers can through positive driving behaviour,” said OPP deputy commissioner Brad Blair, provincial commander of traffic safety and operational support. “During winter months, the way people drive needs to be very different than the way they drive the rest of the year.”

The OPP and Transportation Ministry recently hosted an open house to showcase new plows and equipment in York Region.

The ministry has added 50 new pieces of equipment to its southern Ontario fleet.

This winter it aims to have all Class 1 highways, which includes Hwy 400 and Hwy 404, bare or partially bare within eight hours of precipitation.

They will begin plowing highways when there is an accumulation of two or more centimetres of snow or slush and the equipment for spreading sand or salt will be on the roads within 30 minutes of the start of a storm
Schmidt also said it is important not to pass plows.

“It’s too dangerous,” he said.