If you drive on Fridays you are putting yourself at the highest risk of getting into a collision in Penticton.
“You are more likely to be involved in a collision on a Friday than any other day of the week,” said Sgt. Rick Dellebuur, senior front line supervisor and media relations for the Penticton detachment.
“The main causative factors continue to be excessive speed, intersection violations and driver inattention.”
RCMP have completed a trends study of 1,276 collisions that occurred between Jan. 1, 2010 and Oct. 31, 2011. The study highlighted that 73 per cent of the collisions happened between 8 a.m. and 7 p.m. The highest number of collisions occurred between 11 a.m. and noon.
“While you are most likely to be involved in a collision in the parking lot of a shopping centre, these collisions are generally fairly minor in nature,” said Dellebuur.
“The Penticton collision trends study has identified several high-impact collision areas in the city, where the damage is severe and risk of injury is great.”
The Channel Parkway remains the highest risk area, with collisions clustered at the intersections of Skaha Lake Road, Green Avenue, Industrial, West Duncan Avenue and Eckhardt Avenue. Of the collisions RCMP have responded to in those 22 months of the study, there were nine fatalities and 304 non-fatal injury collisions.
The second highest risk area identified by RCMP is Eckhardt Avenue, between Alberni Street and Highway 97, and Eckhardt Avenue at Main Street.
Penticton RCMP said they will continue with traffic enforcement in the school zones and high-collision areas of the city, with road safety as the primary focus.
“Penticton RCMP’s traffic unit will be monitoring these high-risk areas to reduce collisions through enforcement and education,” said Dellebuur.