MINDEMOYA—The Manitoulin detachment of the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) will be putting in place focused officer patrols on one street in Gore Bay after it was determined that there is a legitimate concern with motor vehicles being driven on that road at excessive speeds.
“We had been requested by the town to have the (OPP) radar speed sign set up in three places in Gore Bay because of concerns with speeding,” said Kevin Webb, staff sergeant-detachment commander of the Manitoulin OPP at a Manitoulin Community Policing Advisory Committee (CPAC) meeting last week.
Traffic enforcement officer Mike Patterson noted that with the speed radar speed indicator signs, “the radar speed sign is usually set up for a 24-hour period. It takes a reading of every vehicle that goes by, how fast it is going, the time of day, provides for information on average speeds and the highest and lowest speed any vehicle driving by was going during that time period. With all the information it provides, the radar sign lets us know if there is a problem with speeding or not in a particular area.”
“In Gore Bay we specifically set up the radar speed sign in two locations, on Water Street and Gore Street,” Officer Patterson told the meeting. In reporting on the findings for Water Street he explained it is a 35 kilometre speed zone; 739 vehicles went past the sign, with 188 over the speed limit. The average speed was 30 kilometres per hour, so it was under the prescribed speed limit. “The highest speed recorded from any vehicle was 57 kilometres per hour,” he said, noting the sign was set up in front of the children’s playground-park area.
Officer Patterson noted, “with all the statistics the speed radar sign provided it shows there is not a huge problem with speeding on Water Street.”
“We also set up the speed radar indicator sign on Gore Street for a 24-hour period,” said Officer Patterson. “A total of 748 vehicles went past the speed sign, with 504 speeding. The highest speed recorded was 84 kilometres in the 40 kilometre are, which is way too fast.”
The average speed of all vehicles that passed the speed sign was 43 kilometres per hour, said Officer Paatterson. “Most drivers were within the speed limits, but there were 214 over the limits, with 77 who were travelling at least 15 kilometres over the limit, 16 driving 20 kilometres above the limit, seven driving 25 kilometres over the limit and two that were driving 30 plus kilometers over the limit. Then we had the one case of someone driving 84 kilometres per hour.”
Officer Patterson said more officers can be set up to patrol Gore Street during the times the speeding occurs the most.
In the near future the OPP will have officers set up at the Gore Street area to provide more focused patrols of the area, the meeting was told.
“We will have the focused patrols established for Gore Street over a couple of weeks time,” said Staff Sergeant Webb. “Our goal in this focus patrol programs is to eliminate the problem. Once a problem has been identified we put in place the focus patrol and at the end of this time we hope the problem has been eliminated.” He said follow up takes place again in the near future. It was pointed out as well, the radar speed indicator sign will also be set up on Powell street sometime this fall for a short period of time to determine if there is a problem with speeding in this area.
