Manitoba Public Insurance (MPI) is reminding Manitoba drivers to slow down and to be aware of their surroundings after the release of January collision statistics.

MPI Media Relations Coordinator Brian Smiley says the statistics are alarming.

"For the first three weeks of January, roughly 10,000 collisions were reported, which isn't out of the ordinary, but we noticed of those 10,000 collisions, 3,000 were attributed to simply not driving to the road conditions," says Smiley.

"That means travelling too fast on ice or snow, travelling too fast during blizzard-like conditions, or perhaps, driving too fast on ice polished roads."

Smiley says these collisions do not need to happen.

An additional 1,300 collisions were caused by people following too close to each other. Smiley says MPI is continually sending out road safety messages.

"We're keeping the conversation about road safety out in the forefront, and motorists hear it. Hopefully, some of them adjust their driving behaviours," says Smiley.

"At the end of the day, driving is controlled by the operator, the person behind the wheel. If they continue to drive too fast, then they're putting themselves and everyone in that vehicle, and other vehicles in jeopardy."

Smiley says despite all of the negative news, there's still some positive aspects of the data.

"During our data run, we did notice that the January 2020 collision counts are lower than our January three-year average. The average is nearly 18,000, and we're certainly below that, which is good news," says Smiley.