Speeding Crackdown Highlights Continued Driving Trends

Jan 31
07:00

2013

Paul E Lee

Paul E Lee

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Local Police in one San Diego city cited more than two dozen drivers in a six hour crackdown targeting speeding, highlighting a continued insistence on dangerous driving behaviors.

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Officers from the La Mesa Police Department in San Diego ticketed more than two dozen drivers for speeding in a single weekday earlier this week,Speeding Crackdown Highlights Continued Driving Trends Articles highlighting a continued refusal from drivers to observe even the most basic safe driving behaviors. Conducted as a part of the La Mesa PD’s larger “Traffic Safety Enforcement Program”, officers were out in force specifically targeting drivers exceeding posted speed limits in an effort to prevent the kinds of dangerous speed related accidents that claim thousands of lives each year around the country.

A total of 29 drivers were cited for speeding during the six hour operation, including one driver clocked at 81 miles per hour through a 35 mile per hour zone. Another driver was cited for driving with a suspended license, and another vehicle was impounded. Four others were issued verbal warnings for various infractions. “The program relies on heavy enforcement and public education as a means to help reduce deaths and injuries on our local roadways,” said a spokesperson from the La Mesa PD in a statement. “These efforts will continue throughout the year and as long as it takes to get the message out to not speed in the city of La Mesa.”

According to statistics from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, speeding is a factor in almost a third of all fatal accident across the country, killing an average of a thousand people each month. And yet in spite of the dangers, survey results from Farmers Insurance Group show that nearly two thirds of all drivers admit to driving well beyond the speed limit, with 36% admitting to doing so regularly. Driving too quickly significantly reduces your ability to avoid a collision and increases the force of impact when a collision does occur. In wet weather conditions, this danger is increased exponentially, as the added loss of traction makes any road maneuver a potential fatal mistake.

By targeting individual driving behaviors and focusing enforcement efforts, it is hoped that drivers will finally begin to understand the repercussions of them. Previous enforcement efforts have targeted other unsafe behaviors like impaired driving and distracted driving, with each demonstrating that many drivers do not yet acknowledge the dangers, or take them serious enough to avoid them. Nationwide survey results have shown clearly that though a vast majority of drivers today understand the potential for an accident in using their cell phone while behind the wheel, almost all continue to do so anyway.

Founding for the La Mesa campaign was provided by a grant from the California Office of Traffic Safety through the NHTSA. In providing financial assistance to help local agencies conduct these crackdowns, state and federal agencies are hopeful that a more personal impact can be made beyond nationwide campaigns like “Click it or Ticket” and “Driver Sober or Get Pulled Over”, which most drivers have grown to simply ignore. When faced with the threat of citations, arrest, and substantial fines, drivers cannot simply ignore safe driving behaviors.