Toronto police begin week-long road safety blitz

Toronto police have started a week-long road safety blitz,emphasizing zero tolerance enforcement and community engagement.

As of Monday, police began targeting the "big four" driver behaviours which are known to cause injuries to pedestrians. These include speeding, distracted driving, driving while impaired and driving aggressively.

A police spokesperson said in a press release thatwhile road collisions were inevitable, crashes where people were killed or seriously injured were preventable and unacceptable.

"Zero injuries and deaths on our roads is the number that we all should be working towards. Too often a vulnerable road user is involved," the spokesperson said.

This road safety campaign comes amid rising pedestrian deaths,with nine fatal collisionshappeningon Torontoroads since the beginning of the year. In2018, 41 people were killed, making it one of the worst years for pedestrian fatalities.

Pedestrians accounted for more than half of all the deaths on city-controlled roads, according to police statistics.

In an effort to curb this, the city ramped up spending on its Vision Zero plan last year, which aimed to eliminate all traffic-related deaths, but critics, includingMayor John Tory, said it's done little to slow the rate of deadly collisions.