Intersection Safety Program

Statistics show that 25 per cent of fatal and serious injury collisions happen at controlled intersections. The City of Spruce Grove needs your help to make our intersections safer and to save lives. That’s why we’re introducing a proactive and educational approach to intersection safety that we hope will reduce incidents at intersections by 20 per cent over the next year.

The Intersection Safety Program combines public awareness, educational activity, increased enforcement and intersection design strategies to help us reach our goal.

The program will be implemented in six stages, starting with a review of 19 intersections by an RCMP traffic specialist. Based on the specialist’s findings design changes may be made at intersections that require them.

Photo enforcement officers will be stationed at these intersections 0.157 per cent of the time to capture images of motorists who commit red light infractions. Instead of tickets, educational materials will be mailed out to violators for the first 30 days, and an advertising campaign will encourage motorists to obey the traffic rules at intersections. After the grace period, violators will receive fines, and the money they pay will help pay for this initiative.

The data collected by the photo enforcement officers at the intersections will be monitored by the Intersection Safety Review Committee (comprised of an RCMP Traffic Safety Specialist, a City of Spruce Grove Traffic Engineer, and the Safe City Coordinator) to determine where most intersection infractions occur and whether the program is reducing infractions.

Tickets will contain an important educational opportunity for violators as they will include instructions allowing the violator to see a video of their traffic offence online.

Intersections that continue to have a high number of incidents will be re-evaluated and additional measures may be taken, including further design changes and increased enforcement through a uniformed presence.

Based on the success of the program it may be expanded to include other intersections after 2010.

The Intersection Safety Program has been endorsed by the Alberta Motor Association (AMA), and based on Spruce Grove’s success similar programs may be adopted by other municipalities.