Surrey Mounties have added driving complaints to the list of things you can now report to the RCMP online, through its Online Crime Reporting tool.
While people should still call 911 for emergencies, this reporting tool is for occurrences that aren’t in progress. The police define a “driving complaint” on their website as “general poor driving behaviour that includes speeding, distracted driving, or failing to follow road signs or signals.”
June 17 will mark one year since the OCRT platform went live in Surrey. It’s intended to provide residents with a “convenient way” to report non-emergency crimes.
Corporal Joanie Sidhu said that over the past year, the Surrey RCMP has received 648 reports of crime and lost property at www.surreyrcmp.ca/report.
“Complaints regarding in progress driving complaints must be called in to Surrey RCMP non-emergency at 604-599-0502 or, if there is an immediate threat to safety, to 911,” she said.
Also, you can use the OCRT if you have lost something that costs less than $5000, someone has stolen something from you that costs less than $5000, or if someone has vandalized your property or vehicle and it will cost less than $5000 to repair it.
“Since its inception, Online Crime Reporting has assisted in reducing the Detachment’s calls for service, allowing call takers and frontline officers to focus on higher priority calls, which improves overall safety and response times,” Sidhu said. “In addition, the online reports help police identify crime trends and areas with repeated driving complaints. This information helps to inform police deployments around Surrey.”
Superintendent Manly Burleigh, Surrey RCMP Operations Officer, noted that while a police officer “may not attend the location of each specific report, this information is still vitally important in helping us determine crime and traffic hot spots, and officer deployments.”
tom.zytaruk@surreynowleader.com
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