By Kathy Michaels – Penticton Western News
Published: August 13, 2009
(Original Article)
When it comes to traffic enforcement in the South Okanagan, the biggest concern for the time being is motorcyclists.
As summer ebbs, the evidence that motorcyclists are not being diligent in maintaining both their safety and the safety of others is mounting, explained Cpl Bryce Petersen.
“Within the province motorcycle fatalities as a whole are up over 200 per cent this year,” he said.
“The biggest problem comes from riders of the cafe-style bike — the type of bike where you are leaned over the tank — they won’t get the message to reduce their speed.”
Those who prefer those bikes, which are commonly referred to as crotch rockets, have a tendency to not only speed, said Petersen, but to do so excessively.
“Most cruisers, Harleys, or Goldwing riders … they get it,” he said, adding that over the August long weekend they handed out 11 speeding tickets to motorcyclists, three of which were for speeding in the range of 160 to 173 km/h.
“A motorcycle can go on forever standing up and going fast, but if it has to turn and do something at a high speed … if you don’t have experience that’s when bad things happen.
Being generally careless isn’t helping either. On Tuesday Petersen came across a motorcyclist that was passing on the right, tailgating and going too fast.
“They’re just not paying attention to the road and the unfortunate part is those operators are in the minority, but they’re giving the average motorcycle rider a bad wrap.”
Petersen said he hopes a crackdown on motorcyclists behaving poorly will net the same results as the provincial effort to get people to start wearing their seat-belts did years earlier.
Four years ago the province ramped up their efforts to stop the practice, and to date they have yielded some high rewards.
“I can say from attending crashes, less people are dying because they’re not wearing seat-belts,” he said, noting there were 69 seat-belt ticket issued over the long weekend, and one case where a child restraint was absent.
In other areas of enforcement, the weekend kept traffic cops on their toes as nearly 7,000 cars exit and enter the valley over the holiday.
Between July 31 and Aug. 3, RCMP’s concerted efforts on the stretch along Highway 3 and Highway 97 resulted in 400 tickets issued in addition to numerous other offenses being caught.
In total, there were 330 speeding tickets issued and 12, 24-hour suspensions. Eight impaired divers were caught and five drug seizures were had. There were also three criminal offences, two warrants executed and one vehicle impounded.
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