Oceanside Community Safety

Our family had the opportunity to meet with Jessica for a car seat check today in Parksville.

Over my lifetime so far, I've gone from a child who rode on a foam mattress in the back of our family station wagon on summer road trips to a grandfather who would not dream of driving anywhere without grand daughters safely buckled up in proper child restraints. Needless to say, wearing my own seatbelt has become a reflex action. I'm uncomfortable if I don't wear it and don't notice it when I do.

That said, it is still not uncommon to find people who are unbelted, even though B.C. has had mandatory seatbelt use rules since October 1977.

Volunteers staff the OCSV booth at Quality Food's annual Teddy Bear Picnic held at Jack Begley field in Nanoose Bay.

OCSV's Mike Garland speaks with The Beach FM's Dave Graham discussing upcoming events.

1) June 14, a theft was reported from a shed on Rheumer Crescent in Parksville. Once the suspect entered the shed they stole a dark blue Marin men’s mountain bike.

I am blessed with a steady stream of questions that arrive from visitors to the DriveSmartBC web site. Whenever I am short on ideas to base my weekly article on I can count on someone to make a suggestion. This week the operative word is short, and I'm going to deal with questions that haven't developed into a full article but deserve a response.

The OCSV performed two deployments in May, 2017 dedicated to the Cell Watch program exclusively. Of 1150 drivers observed, 4 were talking on the phone and 7 were performing other distracting actions.

Ten Speed Watch and Cell Watch deployments were made by the OCSV during the month of May, 2017. Of 6413 vehicle checked, 433 or 7% were traveling at more than 10 km/h over the posted speed limit with the highest deviation being 87 km/h in a 50 km/h zone. 30 drivers were observed talking on or texting with hand held cellular phones.

Oceanside Community Safety Volunteer as the RCMP Safety Bear at the annual Tim Hortons Camp Day. Oceanside RCMP has been a partner with the Parksville Tim Horton's with the jail fundraiser to help Camp Day.

Oceanside Community Safety Volunteers partnered with Central Island Traffic, Oceanside RCMP, and the Child Passenger Safety Association of Canada (CPSAC) to assist beach-goers from all over the island with safely transporting their children to and from Rathtrevor last weekend.

The crew were able to assist 71 children under 9 - assuring some parents that they were already transporting their children in a safe and legal manner and assisting 59 other to get their children riding more safely. The team also spoke with 5 children 9 and over about seat belt safety.