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More people have died on Ottawa’s roads than normal, including a recent surge of deaths in the past two months.
City leaders such as the mayor and police chief are speaking about road safety at 11 a.m. ET Thursday.
CBC News will carry the news conference live in this story.
There have been 32 traffic-related deaths in 23 collisions so far this year, according to Ottawa police statistics shared last week. A normal year for Ottawa has recently had 20 to 25.
More pedestrians have been killed than normal.
The number of total collisions is more in line with the city’s average, police said.
The steep increase in deaths is the result of several factors, including a rising number of stunt drivers and impaired drivers, said Sgt. Josh Callaghan, head of Ottawa police’s road safety unit, last week,
“We’re seeing an increase in distracted driving on our roadways, speeds increasing on our roadways and just in general people [showing] a lack of care for one another,” he said.
According to Ottawa Safety Council team lead Kim Kimbell, safe driving habits have deteriorated over time, with many people caring less about the rules of the road.