SGI says speed-related deaths, crashes down

In a week that has highlighted some heavy-footed tendencies among Saskatoon drivers, SGI says there has been progress in the fight to curb speeding.
 
A 16-year-old boy was fined more than $700 Tuesday, and got his mother’s car impounded, after he was caught speeding around 150 km/h on McOrmond Drive.
 
Later that day, officers from the Saskatoon police traffic unit doled out $18,000 worth of speeding tickets in the construction zone around Highway 16 and Boychuk Drive.
 
SGI’s Shannon Ell acknowledged both incidents show there’s plenty of room for improvement when it comes to speeding.
 
However, in an appearance Thursday on the Brent Loucks Show, she said while business may be booming when it comes to tickets, other measures have been moving in the right direction over the last decade.
 
 “If you look at the crash data that we have,  we actually have been seeing a downward trend in speeding related incidents — collisions and fatalities,” she said.
 
Ell noted early data on the province’s photo radar program is also showing some promise.
 
“We have seen a reduction in the speeds around the camera zones, both in the high-speed corridors as well as school zones,” she said.
 
Ell said collision are also down in areas where photo radar is present.
 
She said the company expects to deliver a full report on the program to the provincial government later this year.