Project SWOOP arrives in Langley to target speeders

Project SWOOP returned to the Langley Bypass this month, with ICBC and local RCMP officers working together to encourage people to slow down and obey the speed limits.

SWOOP stands for Speed Watch Out On Patrol, and it has been a regular feature of major roads around the Lower Mainland for several years.

However, it’s been a few years since drivers on the Bypass and Highway 10 have seen it, and on Thursday, June 2, three police agencies teamed up to cover a significant length of that roadway.

In Langley, ICBC set up a Speed Watch station on the bypass near 56th Avenue at Twin Rinks, said Leanne Cassap, road safety coordinator for Langley.

The station included a large sign reminding drivers that the speed limit is 70 km/h there, as well as a digital speed board that displayed people’s speeds as they passed. Most drivers were doing the posted limit or lower as they turned into the curve heading west from 56th Avenue.

For those who weren’t driving so carefully, there were RCMP officers with radar guns waiting for them near the train tracks and at the 204th Street overpass.

People driving too far over the limit would be pulled over.

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The Surrey RCMP and Delta Police were also set up further along Highway 10, so drivers heading all the way through would meet multiple SWOOP stations, said Cassap.

Cassap remembers driving Highway 10 through all three communities the last time SWOOP was set up there, several years ago.

“The impact on traffic was so noticeable,” she said. “They slowed right down.”

ICBC and traffic enforcement police encourage people to obey the speed limit and drive safely for the weather conditions because speed remains a factor in in many crashes, injuries, and deaths every year.

“Speed is still the number one reason for car crash fatalities in British Columbia,” Cassap said.

Every year there are approximately 82 fatalities and 3,900 crashes in B.C. related to speed.

“When we slow down, we see more of the road,” Cassap said.

She also wanted to remind drivers that the speed limits are intended to be the maximum when driving conditions are ideal – in other words, you may have to drive slower in bad weather, darkness, fog, and snow.