Police urge drivers to slow down amid deadly summer on B.C. highways

The BC Highway Patrol (BCHP) is pleading with drivers to slow down after multiple deadly collisions just one month into summer.

Since the beginning of July over 20 drivers have died on British Columbian highways. The BCHP tells CityNews that excessive speeding is to blame.

“Despite the media attention for all of these fatal crashes that we’ve seen around British Columbia, we’re seeing an extraordinarily high number of people that are still driving overly aggressively, and getting pulled over and stopped for excessive speeding, absolutely incredible speeds, throughout the province,” Insp. Chad Badry told CityNews.

In a release Wednesday, the BCHP published a list of vehicles and drivers its officers had stopped while going at remarkable speeds.

Police say between July 8 and July 15, Highway Patrol officers in the Central Okanagan area stopped 40 drivers for excessive speed, which it defines as more than 50 kilometres per hour over the speed limit.

Nearly every other driver on the patrol’s list had been going double the speed limit where they were stopped.

Badry says one incident that didn’t make the list involved a person driving more than 130 km/h over the limit.

He says there’s no justification for excessive speeding, and the consequences are hefty, but the problem is rampant across the province.

“Each of those [drivers on the list] had their vehicle impounded for seven days, and they were issued tickets ranging from between $368 and $483. And since the beginning of July, [the] BC Highway Patrol alone … [issued] 132 excessive speed violation tickets,” said Badry.

He added that the ultimate consequence is “people are dying because of this aggressive driving.”

Badry says the BC Highway Patrol has never seen a summer with so many speeding violations and crashes, but it’s working hard to “break the culture of speed and keep the roads safe.”