Police launch drive to monitor youths’ over speeding

The police started to supervise young people’s traffic behaviour from Friday to Sunday, said the National Police Board in a press release on Friday.

The campaign will focus on detecting excessive speeding and supervision of young people’s traffic behaviour and any meetups and rallies.

Police supervision will be specifically targeted at these issues because of the disproportionately high number of young people (ages 15 to 24) involved in traffic accidents.

Fatal accidents caused by youngsters occur most often particularly at night between Friday and Saturday, and almost as often, between Saturday and Sunday.

Young people’s risk of death, relative to population, is three times higher than that of the entire population.

In January–June this year, 12 young persons under the age of 25 have died in traffic, which is 17% of all fatalities.

“Too high or inappropriate situational speed is a contributing factor in approximately every third fatal traffic accident,” said Chief Superintendent of the National Police Board Heikki Kallio.

At high speeds, accidents cause far more damage than accidents at a lower speed.

“Aggravated endangering of traffic safety typically involves excessive speeding (more than 50 km/h over the permitted speed). Every year, the police record some two thousand young drivers aged 17 to 24 as suspects in aggravated endangering of traffic safety,” said Kallio.

Young people’s share of all suspects recorded in these offences is almost one half (45%). Men account for up to 90 per cent of suspects in aggravated endangering of traffic safety, of young people and overall.