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Cold, wet, and muddy conditions put a bit of a damper on the Victoria Day long weekend festivities, making for a relatively tame enforcement weekend for authorities.
Crowsnest Pass RCMP issued a total of 110 traffic tickets to in-town and highway traffic over the course of the weekend.
“It was a relatively uneventful weekend,” said Crowsnest Pass RCMP Sergeant Scott Howard.
At the provincial level, Alberta sheriffs and RCMP handed out a total of 3,263 tickets - 2,355 for speeding, 135 for seatbelts, and 130 for impaired driving - as part of National Road Safety Week.
Additional tickets for careless driving, stunting, and other infractions were also issued.
These numbers were relatively low compared to other years, and are believed to be a direct
result of the weather leading many motorists to stay at home for the weekend.
“The weather was a huge deterrent, and the fire ban added to that,” said Sergeant Howard.
Crowsnest Pass RCMP officers located nine open fires which were in contravention of the province-wide fire ban, but no tickets were issued, as the fires were extinguished without incident. |
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“No fines for the fire ban infractions in our area were given, as in all cases the fires were attended and immediately extinguished upon
request,” said Alberta Sustainable Resource
Development Southern Rockies Wildfire Information Officer Karen Ritchie.
“People were generally supportive of the fire ban, once they understood the ban connected locally to resource capacity,” she said.
A total of 38 fires were started throughout Alberta over the
weekend, 12 which were human-caused, 15 which were caused by lightning, and 11 which were still under investigation as of Friday.
Ritchie said eight of the human-caused fires were in the Southern Rockies, all of which were recreational in
origin.
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