Grey Bruce groups concerned about Highway 6 on the Bruce Peninsula are supporting harsher penalties for stunt drivers in a new Act proposed by the Provincial government.
Bruce-Grey-Owen Sound MPP Bill Walker says the Bruce Peninsula Safer Communities Committee, Grey Bruce OPP, MTO and municipal reps have been working hard to combat excessive speeding on Highway 6 on the Bruce Peninsula in recent years.
Walker says the Moving Ontarians More Safely Act (MOMS Act) proposes those ticketed for stunt driving, street racing and aggressive driving have their licences suspended for 30 days instead of the current seven and their vehicles impounded for 14 days instead of seven.
It also proposes creating escalating suspensions for repeat offenders and setting a lower speed threshold for stunt driving charges on municipal roads.
(Stunt driving is driving 50km/h or more over the posted speed limit). The Act also proposes a lower speed threshold for stunt driving charges of driving 40 km/h or more above the speed limit on roads where the speed limit is less than 80 km/h.
Manager of the Bruce Peninsula Safe Communities Committee and local United Way Executive Director Francesca Dobbyn says, “This is something the Bruce Peninsula Safe Communities Committee has been advocating for, for many years, is stricter fines, impoundments, more focused economic impact of people people making the choice to stunt drive.”
MPP Walker says, “I’m very happy to see this legislation come forward,” adding, “Unfortunately, locally we have experienced stunt driving on our highways. Hopefully, if this legislation passes, implementing more severe consequences for this behaviour will act as a deterrent.”
Walker says Minister of Transportation, Caroline Mulroney introduced the MOMS Act in the legislature last week, and while the legislation was worked on primarily by Mulroney and Kinga Surma, Associate Minister of Transportation, Walker says he was able to have input, “We certainly went directly to the minister and some of our local municipalities also had delegations at things like the AMO (Association of Municipalities of Ontario) conference that they attended and raised this with the minister directly as well.”
Walker says, “They are aware that we’ve had some challenges, certainly I went to them directly, personally and said we’ve got to find ways to enhance and bolster this because it just doesn’t seem to be working the way it was before.”
Meanwhile, Francesca Dobbyn says, the Bruce Peninsula Safe Communities Committee has long felt the one week suspension at the road, the impoundment of the vehicle for one week, wasn’t fixing the problem, “Even though these fines are huge, it was not affecting people enough,” says Dobbyn.
In a recent report using The Safe Communities Committee says, in 2020, there were 333 stunt driving or racing charges laid by police services in Grey Bruce. 221 were reported to be on Highway 6.
They say Ontario saw at least $2.1 million in stunt driving related fines.
In April, a newly formed local Southwest Regional Road Safety Committee launched a campaign called DRIVES: Driving Responsibly In Vehicles Everywhere Safely with the social media hashtag: #dontpaytheprice to raise awareness of the consequences of a stunt driving charge.
That committee is made up of The Bruce Peninsula Safe Communities Committee, the United Way of Bruce Grey, Grey Bruce OPP, South Bruce OPP and Saugeen Shores Police. Dobbyn says the MTO gave them a grant to run the DRIVES campaign.
According to Dobbyn, through the use of that grant and donations the group is targeting people in the GTA by airing radio ads on Spotify, “Part of our challenge is by the time they get here it’s too late, ” says Dobbyn who hopes the message is heard before people come speeding up through Grey Bruce.
Dobbyn says they’re also taking donations which can support buying more ads.
Last year, the Bruce Peninsula Safer Communities Committee ran a lawn sign campaign during which residents could buy a $20 sign that warned of minimum $2,000 fines for stunt driving.
Last year, there was also occasional OPP air enforcement on Highway 6 because the road is painted with distance markers that allow speeders to be identified from a helicopter or an airplane.
Dobbyn says OPP also used Speed Spy (speed reading) devices to determine certain times of day when speeding was more frequent on the highway.
Meanwhile, if passed by the legislature, the MOMS Act would also include measures to protect pedestrians and highway workers, improve truck safety and strengthen the province’s oversight of the towing sector.
The MOMs Act has passed first and second reading in the Ontario legislature and has been sent to committee. It’s unclear how long it will take for it to come back with the committee’s recommendations. The Ontario Legislature takes its summer break June 4th.