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Written by Dave Mabell Lethbridge Herald
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Monday, 08 February 2010 |
Speeders may want to ease off the pedal on Alberta’s highways.
Alberta’s traffic sheriffs and RCMP will be pooling their resources to boost law enforcement on the province’s major routes. But integrating the two groups will take up to two years, officials say.
The province’s 178 Mounties on traffic patrol will link with Alberta’s 107 “traffic sheriffs,” as office space and updated communications equipment become available. They’ll be posted at 19 key locations, including Lethbridge and Medicine Hat.
“Our goal is to create the safest roads possible,” said Frank Oberle, the province’s solicitor general. “Our sheriffs have been a valued component of our traffic safety efforts.”
Alberta introduced traffic sheriffs in the fall of 2006, as an alternative to hiring more RCMP officers. They’re authorized to issue tickets for speeding and other traffic law infractions, but not for criminal code offences including impaired driving.
Sheriffs will continue to call for RCMP assistance on those matters, officials say, as well as for cases involving drugs, immigration and security, and other federally governed issues.
Four pilot projects in four central Alberta communities, however, showed ways the two forces could work together. In a release, Oberle said the model followed in Wetaskiwin, where an RCMP supervisor oversaw an integrated team, worked best.
“Each had elements of success, and provided valuable information,” he said.
By integrating the two forces, Oberle said the Wetaskiwin project improved enforcement coverage as well as the quality of traffic investigations. It also increased visibility on Highway 2 and adjacent routes, he said, and served to keep speeds lower.
While traffic patrol personnel would operate from a single office in each of the 19 communities, their training and scheduling would remain as is.
Speaking from Edmonton, RCMP spokesperson Cpl. Wayne Oakes said rolling out an integrated highway patrol will take up to two years. New computer equipment and a shared operational base may be required in each location.
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