highway safety – Ft McMurray's Homepage

Pilot Project Seeking Officer Overtime to Boost Highway Safety Proposed

A new pilot project has been proposed to boost highway safety on highway 63 and highway 881 by securing overtime funding so that additional officers can patrol both highways. Both 63 and 881 link to the oilsands in the region, and there have been a number of serious and fatal accidents in recent years. According to The Coalition for a Safer 63 & 881 the funding for the overtime expenses would be covered by the membership of the group, and the goal of the coalition is to provide for a maximum of 900 additional overtime hours for officer overtime expenses to patrol both highways involved. ConocoPhilips, Suncor, and Syncrude are all members of the coalition. Highways 63 and 881 are an important part of the oilsands infrastructure and the coalition hopes to improve safety on these roads.

Debbie Hammond, the coalition executive director, discussed the pilot project for officer overtime and highway safety. Hammond explained that “We as industry are at the table with our partners, looking to be part of the solution to safety on the highways.” During shutdown season traffic can increase by thousands of people and that means more safety issues as more people travel these roads. Hammond stated that the coalition wants to help and that they are not trying to send a message or make a point, and she reassured the public that the coalition would provide the funding and the money would not have to come from the municipality coffers. Hammond told the media that “There’s not an infinite amount of money to go around. We know the federal and provincial governments have priorities across our province and country,” she said. “Industry feels it’s important to be a part of this. We want a collaborative relationship with our government and feel this is the right approach.”

Fort MacMurray Coalition Addresses Highway Safety

Fort MacMurray residents experienced the real consequences of vehicle accidents with the help of a new campaign to promote highway safety. The Coalition for a Safer 63 ad 881 started a new campaign to help make residents aware of collisions and to remind them to drive safely on the local highways. The coalition placed wrecked cars at various locations around Fort MacMurray so that people could see what happens during collisions. The vehicles were placed outside of Father Patrick Mercredi High School, Tim Hortons, and even Canadian Tire. The goal was to raise awareness for The Pledge campaign started by the coalition. According to the executive director of the coalition Debbie Hammond “We placed a vehicle from a Highway 63 fatality at three busy sites around the city in a symbolic effort once again to raise awareness of the pledge and our goal to get more people thinking about their driving habits and whether they make safe choices behind the wheel.”

The highway safety campaign is a grassroots campaign targeted to the Fort MacMurray community. Hammond continued by saying “When you look at it, (we want people) to start to think about what happens when we’re on the highway driving high speeds and come to a sudden stop because we hit something. That vehicle is not going to save us. It’s not a safety net. That’s what happens in the real world when there are serious collisions.” Debbie continued “With this campaign, because it’s a community, grassroots campaign, we are targeting the community at large. Folks in Fort McMurray at any given time have to get on Highway 63 because they’ve got to get to the larger cities. We can all make a difference on the highway. At the end of the day, if we all take that pledge and we all pledge to be safer drivers, we could all work together towards that.”