THE START OF AUGUST has brought new fears for police in Aberdeenshire and Moray as they increase efforts to avoid the spike in road accidents that traditionally happen at this time of the year.
Police officers once again increased their visibility throughout the region at the weekend in the hope of deterring motorists from driving badly – and often recklessly.
However, a disappointed Inspector Ewan Innes reported that their efforts could not stop a total of 28 collisions happening – two of which led to serious injuries for those involved.
Under their long running Operation Cedar campaign, which has already seen drivers caught out this summer for a variety of road traffic offences, police stopped 293 vehicles over the weekend with 12 motorists reported for speeding offences, four for drink/driving and 15 for a variety of other offences.
Inspector Innes said that his officers remained determined to do all they could to avoid the annual ‘August Spike’ in road accidents, adding: “Unfortunately once we moved into August last year the collisions started to increase.
“In August 2014 we had four fatal and 20 serious injuries resulting from road accidents – that is a trend we do not want to see repeated.”