OPP lay thousands of driving charges during holiday weekend

The last long weekend of the summer saw plenty of unsafe driving.

The Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) West Region laid a total of 2,426 charges from September 1 to September 4.

This year's traffic campaign focused on the "Big Four" bad driving behaviours which include aggressive driving, failure to wear a seatbelt, distracted driving, and impaired driving.

Charges laid for the "Big Four" are as follows:

• Speeding charges: 1,450

• Failure to wear a seatbelt charges: 128

• Distracted Driving charges: 31

• Impaired Driving charges: 54

The west region encompasses Grey, Bruce, Huron, Perth, Middlesex, Elgin, Oxford, Norfolk, Lambton, Chatham-Kent, and Essex counties. Charges laid within those areas break down like this:

Labour Day weekend traffic campaign results (Image courtesy of the Ontario Provincial Police)

These four factors are the leading contributors to death, injury, and property damage on Ontario roads and highways.