Earlier this month, a story made the rounds about a tech-savvy community leader in Kenya who ingeniously utilized Twitter as a tool for fighting crime in his village. Turns out that wasn’t exactly an isolated incident of Twitter being used by communities to deter crime as the Canadian town of Sackville has adopted a similar strategy. Members of the community in Nova Scotia there have been tweeting reports of negligent drivers ignoring stop signs to the official twitter account of Nova Scotia’s Royal Canadian Mounted Police, @RCMPNS.
The mounties, in turn, started policing the intersection where drivers were said to be ignoring traffic signs. As a result, 29 drivers have been caught breaking traffic laws at the intersection. Constable Tammy Lobb told CBC News, “In response to feedback over the @RCMPNS Twitter account, RCMP in Sackville conducted a stop-sign enforcement blitz at the three-way stop.”
RCMP seems to regularly interact with community members in Nova Scotia:
@RCMPNS
RCMP, Nova ScotiaRT @novamoto: @RCMPNS Thanks for the extra patrols on millwood dr. I routinely see cars blowing stop signs at 60+ kph! #halifax
1 hour ago via HootSuite · Reply · Retweet · Favorite · powered by @socialditto
@RCMPNS
RCMP, Nova Scotiafeedback over the @RCMPNS #Twitter prompted #RCMP in #Sackville to conduct stop sign enforcement blitz at intersection in #Sackville 4 hours ago via HootSuite · Reply · Retweet · Favorite · powered by @socialditto
@RCMPNS
RCMP, Nova ScotiaThanks for interacting with us! RT @dbk: Glad to see @RCMPNS using Twitter to engage the community. 4 hours ago via HootSuite · Reply · Retweet · Favorite · powered by @socialditto
Would you like to see more of your local government utilize Twitter as it has been in Nova Scotia and Kenya? What do you think could be achieved through this sort of interaction? Feel free to say it in the comments below.
