The Capital Regional District's Integrated Road Safety Unit (CRD-IRSU) is reminding drivers to slow down.
The CRD-IRSU had a busy Monday with officers attending two West Shore locations, setting up speed enforcement at the crack of dawn.
One of those locations was the Malahat, chosen because of its chronic problem of excessive speeders.
"The primary issue with the Malahat is that when a collision does occur, it is usually very serious due to the amount of drivers on the roadway exceeding the speed limit and the roadway itself being alongside mountainous terrain," said Staff Sgt. James Anderson, unit commander of the CRD-IRSU, in a release.
He added the roadway "offers little in the way of a driver being able to maneuver a vehicle to avoid a collision situation except to slow down, stay on the roadway and hope for the best outcome."
In roughly five hours of enforcement on the Malahat, with an 80 km/h speed limit, officers handed out 77 speeding violations, nine excessive speeding violations (with vehicles impounded for seven days) and two criminal arrest warrants from other jurisdictions.
Some of those excessive speeders were clocked going between 126 km/h to 140 km/h.
“I could safely say that even in an emergency situation, it is unlikely the police would even travel 140 km/h on the Malahat,” Anderson said.
The other location chosen was the Sooke Road and Acacia Drive intersection in Colwood because of its proximity to several collision prone intersections in the area.
In the same time span as the enforcement on the Malahat, officers on Sooke Road, a 50 km/h speed limit, handed out 90 speeding violations and one excessive speeding violation.
Both locations also handed out violations such as driving without insurance, covered/obscured license plate, failure to display "N" for new drivers, no cyclist helmet and distracted driving.
katie@goldstreamgazette.com