Provincial police are already using aircraft to catch speeders on area highways but some new technology is helping them better target the offenders.
Police say speeding, driving dangerously, and following too closely are all contributing factors in the rise of deadly crashes involving tractor trailers.
In our region, police say there were nineteen fatal crashes involving transport trucks last year.
Now they’re using some new equipment to help them catch the offenders from the sky.
Inside the aircraft there’s a camera controlled by a spotter. The device is equipped with Global Positioning System (GPS) calibration and Churchill Navigation, a dynamic mapping and augmented reality system, to detect a vehicle's speed.
The spotter then radios an officer on the ground to pull over the offender.
“We can cover a lot of the highway,” says Chief Superintendent John Cain. “Much more visibility from the top down in observing and we can be more strategic with the officers going out.”
The technology also has the ability to detect vehicles following too closely by using a screen-shot and GPS coordinates to measure distances.
Officers are reminding drivers that just because a cruiser isn’t on the side of the road it doesn’t mean the laws aren’t being enforced.
