Although March's Traffic Safety Spotlight was Distracted Driving, April's focus of speeding couldn't have come soon enough. 

Throughout the month of March, SGI reported 8,734 speeding / aggressive driving tickets, along with 657 offences for seatbelts or child seat violations issued by Saskatchewan law enforcement. Neither speeding nor seatbelts were the focus of March's Traffic Safety Spotlight. However, both set record numbers in the province of Saskatchewan. 

"So March's Safety Spotlight was distracted driving, but when the results came back, the most distractive thing about them was the number of speeding and aggressive driving tickets, as well as seatbelt and child seat infractions. Those are both numbers that we have never seen in the five-year history of the Traffic Saftey Spotlight," said Tyler McMurchy, Manager of Media Relations with SGI.

The Traffic Safety Spotlight focuses on an illegal driving practice every month and attempts to shine a light on the dangers of letting that become a habit. 

"There's no real solid information on why March came back so high, there wasn't anything special that would have led to those numbers. Law enforcement just seemed to be catching a lot of people breaking speeding or seatbelt laws. It may be a function of the fact that the weather warmed up, so people seeing that the roads were a little clearer, felt a little more tempted to tromp on the gas pedal. Those posted speed limits are there for a reason and they're marked for ideal road conditions, so they're still in effect even though the roads are nice."

It wasn't all speeding and seatbelts in March, police also reported 748 distracted driving offences and 319 impaired driving offences. 

"The distracted driving offences we did see in March wasn't a record, but it's still higher than we'd like to see. When it comes to impaired driving, obviously we know that the only acceptable number is zero"

April's Traffic Safety Spotlight will now shift its focus to speeding and aggressive driving, which could not have come fast enough.