Collisions, drug impairment offences up in 2021

Motor vehicle collisions in Hamilton were lower than pre-pandemic levels last year as the number of drug-related impairment charges more than doubled since 2019.

There were 7,819 crashes in 2021, a six per cent increase over 2020 but a 32 per cent decrease over 2019, according to a traffic safety report presented to the police services board Thursday.

An uptick in vehicle traffic after a pandemic-stricken year led to increases for most collision and traffic-related statistics in 2021.

Crashes that damaged property and were reported to collision reporting centres jumped 45 per cent last year, while collisions that resulted in injuries increased by a meagre two per cent.

Fatal crashes - which include single-vehicle, multi-vehicle and pedestrian-involved collisions - also experienced a slight jump of around six per cent. There were 16 traffic fatalities in 2021 (seven drivers, nine pedestrians) compared to 15 in 2020 and 17 in 2019.

Not included in Thursday's report was the recent spate of traffic fatalities in 2022, a concerning" trend Supt. Shawn Blaj told the board he would be remiss not to mention.

In just under five months this year, 10 people have died as a result of collisions - including nine pedestrians, a figure which already matches the total tally recorded in all of 2021. The most recent death - a 36-year-old man who died Tuesday after being struck by a forklift at Janco Steel Ltd. - was counted as a traffic fatality because the victim was hit by a motor vehicle.

While I can't speak to any specificity on our 2022 fatalities as many are still under investigations, I can say the causal factors of some of them are more complex than we would like," Blaj said.

Among the only year-to-year decreases in the traffic report was for non-hazardous violations - not wearing a seatbelt, failing to surrender a permit - which fell over eight per cent compared to 2020. Meanwhile, hazardous moving violations - infractions at red lights and stop signs, speeding and careless driving offences - jumped nearly 21 per cent.

A worrying trend highlighted in the report were the number of charges related to driving while impaired by drugs, which jumped nearly 13 per cent compared to 2020 and 118 per cent compared to 2019. There were 151 drug-related impairment offences laid last year - more are nine times the amount recorded in 2017.

While total alcohol and drug-related driving offences experienced a small year-to-year uptick of less than one per cent, the 716 impairment charges laid in 2021 marked a five-year high. Alcohol and drugs contributed to 191 collisions, the report noted, up from 172 in 2020.

Police working RIDE checkpoints in 2021 had a remarkably busy year stopping 130,955 vehicles - up 171 per cent from 2020 and 51 per cent from 2019.

Sebastian Bron is a reporter at The Spectator. sbron@thespec.com