Recently, PennDOT participated in the National Work Zone Awareness week, a campaign aimed at increasing drivers’ awareness to the dangers facing road workers.
The kickoff coincided with the Pennsylvania Aggressive Driving Enforcement and Education Project, a statewide effort to target aggressive drivers that will run through early May. The goal of the program is to reduce the number of aggressive driving car accidents, injuries, and deaths on Pennsylvania roadways.
The crackdown will target a spectrum of illegal and dangerous driving habits that continue to be among the leading causes of highway crashes and fatalities in the commonwealth. An analysis of PennDOT data indicates that crashes attributed to aggressive driving rose from 6,330 in 2011 to 7,761 in 2012. Fatal car accidents due to aggressive driving also rose during that time, from 168 in 2011 to 191 in 2012.
Pennsylvania Law Enforcement Focuses on More than Speeding and Distracted Driving
As part of the program, police from more than 330 Pennsylvania municipalities will focus on strategies that include saturation patrols, speed enforcement details, and work zone enforcement. During the course of the project anyone stopped for driving aggressively will be issued a ticket. Police will concentrate on more than just speeding and distracted driving, but will also target tailgating and those who run red lights, pass improperly, fail to yield, or those who make frequent or erratic lane changes.
Law enforcement officers will be stationed along 474 roadways across the state, including 49 roadways in Southeastern Pennsylvania, that have been identified through analysis of crash and fatality statistics as high-risk areas. The project is funded through PennDOT and $2.3 million in federal monies provided by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. That money will primarily be used to pay for officers’ overtime during the course of the program.
Police departments who participated in last year’s campaign wrote 53, 587 aggressive driving related citations, including 31,150 for speeding and 5,011 for ignoring traffic signals. Additionally, police say the increased enforcement led to 51 felony arrests, 145 DUI arrests and 179 drug-related arrests.
Police and state officials urge drivers to leave for their destinations a few minutes earlier. They say this will ease the impatience and frustration that can lead to aggressive driving behaviors. They remind motorists that it is better to arrive a few minutes late rather than driving in an unsafe manner that puts themselves and everyone else on the road at risk.
