The North Bay Police Service is revving up its traffic enforcement as the Service announced it has hired a new full-time traffic enforcement officer.
Mike Daze, North Bay's deputy police chief says the commitment to traffic enforcement is a real priority for the service within the community.
"We recognize that traffic safety is a community safety issue, so it's important that we have somebody out there doing the enforcement," he said after Tuesday's monthly police board meeting.
He says the service needs to be proactive and look for trouble spots in the city.
"Where are the dangerous areas, those intersections, school busses, busy times a day, where just sometimes that consistent, ongoing presence, and knowing that there's somebody out there doing enforcement just helps sort of reduce some speeds and improve driver habits, which is important," he added.
Daze says the new internal hire was completed two weeks ago.
"The average motorist may see some more traffic stops and enforcement being done," he said.
"I think the knowledge that there is somebody out there doing it, and also having that ability to say to be proactive. We have community safety zones. We have areas when kids are waiting to get on the bus that are busy. So knowing that there are police officers that are out there and around looking after their safety. That's important.
"I think drivers become cognizant when they start hearing about maybe some more charges being laid, or educational campaigns that are going out. I think that's sort of the important piece that comes off of that."
Daze notes there are trouble spots such as Lakeshore Drive have speeders but he believes it's a bigger problem than just one major artery in the city.
"Lakeshore Drive certainly does have people who are driving much faster than the posted speed limit and a community safety zone was recently put in there," he said.
"So that is an area that that targets enforcement. But we can't forget there's areas right across the city, and it's not always just about speeding, there's intersections, there's obeying stop signs, red lights, all those kind of things that go into safe driving that isn't always just speeding."
