Concerns are being raised over an increase in the number of people killed on Moray’s roads – prompting a pledge of greater action by Police Scotland.
In the first nine months of 2014/15 there have been 25 people killed on Aberdeenshire and Moray roads – an increase of one on the entire previous year.
Aberdeenshire and Moray figures also show that there was a 150% increase in the number of deaths when compared with 2012/13, when ten people lost their lives in road accidents across the police authority region.
The figures have also indicated that the belief that young and inexperienced motorists were involved in the greatest number of accidents is not the case, with just short of half those involved in fatal accidents having been over 55 years old.
However, while fatalities are up in the last nine months, numbers of those seriously injured in road accidents has fallen.
Now senior police officers have told the P&J newspaper that they will get tough on people who continue to flout the law – in particular on six priority routes in the region, which include the A96 Aberdeen to Inverness route through Moray and roads linking Keith, Buckie, Elgin and Dufftown.
Superintendent George Macdonald said: “We have identified six primary routes that account for a significant percentage of our serious and fatal road collisions and are carrying out visible and proactive patrols on them.
“Clearly we can’t be there all the time and there are certain variables that policing will have little or no control over.”
Police figures show that between April and November last year 14,133 vehicles were stopped and motorists spoken to over their driving or issues with their vehicles.