La Porte Police Department officers recently completed a series of aggressive and dangerous driving patrols that were run between January 15 and 24. These patrols were scheduled because in 2015, January was the month that had the second largest number of traffic crashes. We decided to run aggressive driving patrols because showed that four dangerous behaviors were present in two thirds of the crashes in the City of La Porte last year. These four dangerous driving behaviors were: stop sign/automatic signal violations and failure to yield; following too closely; unsafe backing; unsafe speed or driving too fast for conditions.
During the patrols officers worked 30 of Operation Pull Over funded overtime; 16 hours from 6:00 AM – 6:00 PM and 14 hours from 6:00 PM – 6:00 AM. Officers wrote a total of 56 citations and 28 warnings. Of the citations, 44 were for speeding; five were for seat belt violations; 3 were for sign/signal violations, one was for driving while suspended and the others were for various other violations. The vast majority of the warnings were for equipment violations. Officers also ran Standardized Field Sobriety Tests on two suspected impaired drivers, although neither was ultimately arrested for DUI.
“We have a number of extra patrols targeting both dangerous driving and passenger restraint violations scheduled this year. We are going to continue to try and reduce crashes and crash related injuries in the City of La Porte,” stated Captain Tom Heath.
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.