Red light violations are on the rise

PRINCE GEORGE – If you think more and more people are running red lights in this community, you would be right. In fact, after an inquiry from the CKPG newsroom, Sgt. Matthew LaBelle with the Prince George RCMP did some snooping. He found that the number of intersection infractions has increased by 170% over last year. And those are the ones who got caught.

“When you talk about the volume of traffic that comes through our city, especially commercial vehicles that need to travel through our city, they have to come through intersections from the west to the east, from the south to the north, they have to travel through our city,” says Sgt LaBelle.

Chris Schulz with PG Drive for Life is not at all surprised by the increase. He sees it every day. He has heard a figure of 22,000 vehicles passing through the intersection of Highway 16 and Vance Road every day. That’s why he teaches his students to determine a “fresh” green light or a “stale” green light. A fresh green light is one that has recently turned green, within a block of you reaching that intersection. Everything else is a stale green light. Determine if you can make it safely through the green light. He also teaches his students to pause before moving forward on a green light. Make sure all the vehicles around you are legally stopped. 

But, Sgt LaBelle says there’s also a message to motorists who feel compelled to run red lights.