Local police detachment talk 2018-2019 vehicle speeding jump

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In an update from the local RCMP detachment earlier this month, there was one particular figure (the difference between two figures, really) that stood out to councillor Patrick Wilson.

He noted that in the 2019 RCMP Annual Mayor’s Report, he was “amazed to see” that the detachment had logged 2018 to 2019 we went from 138 speeding violations in 2018, compared to 1023 last year.

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Replying (virtually) to the councillor, Staff Sergeant Dave Brunner attributed much of the increase to good old fashioned hard work from two members of the detachment.

“When you have the right people doing the job, they’re out there writing tickets, and that’s why you’ll see the jump in the numbers,” he told Wilson following his July 13 presentation to council.

“We’ve got two switched-on people that are out there enforcing and doing traffic tickets, and they do a good job.”

He said he thinks his traffic team take “a blended approach of education and enforcement,” setting up in various communities throughout Cochrane.

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“I know that I’ve had people from three or four different areas in Cochrane call the detachment and thank me for having our traffic members in front of their places trying to control some of the excessive speed.”

“They’re good guys, and they do a good job on traffic.”

Wilson, often involved in traffic-related dialogue in his role on council, also asked if any progress had been made to address resident concerns of excessively noisy vehicles. He was told that the Cochrane detachment has been working with the town’s Municipal Enforcement department on the issue.

“We actually have talked to [Sgt. Frank Borsos] with municipal bylaw about this, and he’s working on it. We’ve had one meeting on it and I believe we’ll probably be having a few more,” Staff Sgt. Brunner replied.

“It’s a pretty tough situation: it’s simple when it’s somebody with very loud mufflers and they’re ‘rapping’ them off and they’re making that excessive noise, that falls under the Traffic Safety Act. When it’s just traffic noise, because of the volume on the streets going by, that makes it a little harder and difficult to enforce.”

He said that the town bylaw department receives the majority of the complaints on the issue, as opposed to his department.

“We’re going to be working on that with Municipal Enforcement and see what we can come up with and at the end of the day, if we can come up with something it will be a unified response to it on the road.”

He continued, “I know that diesel vehicles, when they’re driving just the stock diesel vehicle will make a lot of noise. Will that fall into an enforcement range? I’m not sure, because it’s a stock muffler. There are some challenges with that, for sure.”

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Annual reports to council from both Cochrane RCMP and Municipal Enforcement indicated that the departments have a close relationship in how how they manage traffic matters in the town beyond just noise concerns.

“One of the concerns that came to me from the town was that they’d like to see our dedicated traffic people involved with the Town of Cochrane Municipal Enforcement,” said Staff Sgt. Brunner.

“We’ve had various initiatives and varying initiatives that we’ve done in conjunction with municipal traffic, and the enforcement officers that have been very proactive, educational enforcement measures, progressing and building that partnership.”