The Ontario Provincial Police charged more intoxicated drivers, speeders and aggressive motorists during the Victoria Day long weekend compared to the same period last year.

The force says a stepped-up police presence and a revamped safety campaign led to a 40 per cent increase in impaired charges laid, a 51 per cent hike in seat-belt infractions doled out and a 38 per cent rise in speeding offences.

Sgt. Cam Woolley said officers still dealt with their fair share of clueless and ignorant drivers whose actions jeopardized the safety of others on the roads.

"Travelling 170 kilometres an hour, the driver of a stolen vehicle attempted to pass traffic on the shoulder, lost control, crashed into the guardrails rails and struck a pickup truck hauling a camper," Woolley told CTV's Roger Petersen.

"The pickup truck and camper overturned in the ditch, seriously injuring a female passenger in the camper."

The driver is under a lifetime driving ban and was allegedly drunk, Woolley said.

Even OPP Commissioner Julian Fantino helped nab a trio of speeders who zipped past him and Community Safety Minister Monte Kwinter on Highway 400. Fantino called other officers after the vehicles flew past the unmarked police cruiser he and Kwinter were riding in.

In another case, a motorist with four prior impaired driving convictions nearly struck an officer while driving with a blood-alcohol level three times the legal limit.

The accused was on his way to jail to serve out his weekend sentence for a previous impaired driving conviction, police said.

The OPP recently scrapped its traditional holiday roadside blitzes in favour of a stepped-up campaign that is in effect year-round.

Under the new initiative, every region is responsible for analyzing where accidents are happening and then focusing resources to those locations.

The OPP say they have laid 20,000 more charges province wide for violations including speeding and impaired driving compared to the same time last year.

Four people died on the roads during the Victoria Day weekend and there were two deaths on area waterways.

With a report from CTV's Roger Petersen and files from The Canadian Press