Accident Prevention Unit
FTLComm - Tisdale - Tuesday, August 2, 2011
As I drove through Tisdale this morning, it seemed the place was literally crawling with policemen. There were at least three cars parked right downtown, near the four way stop and four or five RCMP vehicles at the Civic Centre which or course suggests that it must be court day. But that got me thinking.
The Tisdale court of course covers a very wide area and that would explain the fleet of vehicles at the Civic Centre but what’s with the stake-out of the four way stop.
The only thing to do was to park downtown and see what crime spree is in progress. I sat watching for almost forty-five minutes trying to figure out what they were doing. The traffic flows through the four way stop very smoothly most of the time, even at 11:15 when north bound traffic was backed up two blocks and that was because of the level of traffic, not the work of the RCMP. Regularly, officers on each corner of the north bound and south bound lanes, would point to a vehicle and wave it over to a parking spot ,usually around the corner. It looked like there were three or more police officers at work and at first I could see no pattern. Many of those pulled over were pickups, but they varied from late model to aging veterans, the drivers were of all ages and then after more than thirty minutes I discovered each time a vehicle was selected, the officer would bend over and look over the driver and passengers.
The second thing that has become a deadly threat to motorists and pedestrians alike are handheld communication devices, “cell phones,” especially “smart phones,” are real trouble and Saskatchewan has a law that bans their use while operating a vehicle. On Friday, I was pulling to a stop at the intersection of highways #3 and #35 and saw a Jeep barely slow down as it drove up to the four way stop from the West and cruised right on through the intersection with vehicles stopped on all four approaches to the intersection. As the vehicle passed the middle of highway #35, it was clear the driver had a cell phone up to his ear and appeared oblivious to the traffic situation. Clearly, that driver is a good prospect as an organ donor and let us all hope that he does not end the life of someone else as he finishes up another phone call.
The crew working the four way stop in downtown Tisdale are from the Prince Albert detachment of the RCMP, they are the accident prevention unit. The officer I talked to said that most often, the public doesn’t see the work they do, because they work so much of the time at night. He said they came out here this morning to check the traffic for seat belts and cell phone usage.
Eveyone I know is pretty diligent about doing up their seat belt and when a cell phone call is received, or has to be made, it is only common sense to pull over to take the call. Yet the RCMP officers were working steady waving drivers over to deal with those people who don’t follow these highway laws. While the team were engaged with such cases at one point this morning, I counted no less than eight drivers who came up to the stop and were clearly not wearing their seat belts. If it takes a blitz of this kind to get the message across, then I am all for it. In fact, it really made me feel proud of the RCMP and the work they were doing. This is constructive policing, this is the sort of thing that definitely will save lives and prevent injury.
