Many citizens are familiar with seat belt patrols, but perhaps are less familiar with aggressive driving patrols. Aggressive driving patrols target those dangerous moving violations that cause or directly contribute to traffic crashes. Between January 15 and 24 officers will be working 30 hours of Operation Pull Over funded aggressive driving patrols.
“Our community’s traffic crash statistics for 2015 show that just four dangerous driving actions are factors in two thirds percent of crashes,” said Captain Tom Heath. “These four driving behaviors include: stop sign/automatic signal violations and failure to yield; following too closely; unsafe backing; unsafe speed or driving too fast for conditions. Officers will be working to eliminate or reduce these violations, as well as other unsafe driving behaviors such as texting while driving, with the goal of reducing crashes and injuries in La Porte.”
January was chosen to run these patrols because crash statistics from 2015 show that January had the second highest percentage of crashes in comparison to the total crashes in the City of La Porte with 9.93%. Last year, February had the most crashes with 12.44% of the total.
Operation Pull Over is a traffic safety grant program funded by the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration and administered by the Indiana Criminal Justice Institute. The goal of Operation Pull Over is to reduce traffic crashes injuries and fatalities by promoting passenger restraint use, and supporting impaired and dangerous driving enforcement.
For more information on Operation Pull Over and the Indiana Criminal Justice Institute’s other programs and activities, please visit http://www.in.gov/cji.