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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

October 10, 2024

Operation Impact 2024: Safety is in MY hands.

Ottawa, Ontario – Tomorrow marks the beginning of Operation Impact 2024, a national public awareness campaign aimed at making Canada's roads the safest in the world. By promoting safe driving behaviours, we hope to help prevent collisions, save lives, and reduce injuries on our roads.

From October 11th to 14th, 2024, police across the country will be focused on behaviours that put drivers, passengers, and other road users at risk: impaired driving due to alcohol, drugs, or fatigue, as well as aggressive driving, distracted driving, and driving without a seat belt.

Most collisions are not ‘accidents’, they are generally the direct result of a conscious decision an individual driver has made. This year, our message to Canadians is Don’t risk lives with bad driving behaviours. Safety is literally in every driver’s hands.

“We are asking Canadians to put safety first. Don’t think you are powerless to do anything about getting the numbers down to “0” .The number of injuries and deaths on our roads are simply too high. “Drivers can do it” said Chief Superintendent André Phelps, co-chair of the CACP’s Traffic Safety Committee.

Each year, motor vehicle collisions kill about 2,000 Canadians, seriously injure another 10,000 people and injure about 165,000 citizens in this country.

“If every driver remembers that the decision to be responsible is in their hands when they get behind the wheel, we can collectively achieve our goal” added Inspector Chris Romanchych co-chair of the CACP Traffic Safety Committee.

This campaign is essential to achieve safer streets and highways across Canada. It takes place during this long weekend because more people are travelling, and collisions are therefore more frequent.

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Operation Impact is organized by the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, under the leadership of the CACP Traffic Safety Committee, in support of Canada’s Road Safety Strategy 2025.