Sheriff David Morgan says that during his campaign one of the top five complaints he heard was the lack of traffic enforcement.
“I still hear at my meetings with citizen’s groups and neighborhood associations complaints about speeders and drivers running traffic lights,” Morgan says.
ECSO Chief Deputy Bill Chavers has beefed up the traffic division and now has two squads. In December 2008, the ECSO, under former Sheriff Ron McNesby, wrote 29 tickets. From when Morgan was sworn into office (Jan. 6) until Jan. 31, the ECSO has written 303 citations.
“I am an old traffic guy,” Chavers says. “We are out to curb speeding, aggressive driving and the running of traffic lights and Stop signs.”
Enforcing traffic laws can lead to more phones to the ECSO, and Chavers admits he has had complaints. Under McNesby, deputies actually had been told not to write traffic tickets —which explains the low number of traffic tickets written in December.
“We are answering to the public’s concerns about traffic violations and have sent our squads to those areas that citizen’s have told us are bad,” Chavers says.
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Wow, 303 tickets. That seems like a number until you look at the number of people assigned to that unit! I think it is some where around ten officers, so if you do the math, each officer wrote about 1.5 tickets per work day! Talk about over worked!
I know Blue Angel Pkwy is horrible. 60-70 plus. Its time for them to get off their _____ and do some work. I can travel 20 miles through the county some days and not see a single officer.
Tickets are not a revenue source for the ECSO. A small portion goes into a special fund that can be used for training or equipment.
Wrong, city and county government get a very small amount from each ticket issued. The majority goes to the state.
with the budget shortfalls, you will find that more community police forces will be issuing tickets to make up for the loss of revenue
now they are parking under the trees just west of BagelHeads along Gregory too. This is law enforcement???
PPD take note. When you actually expend some effort looking for speeders, light runners, aggressive drivers and other such offenders, you can actually make the streets safer. I know that it’s EASY to park in the shade in front of the tennis center on Summit, but there are speeders on other streets that could use some attention. Hopefully the PPD traffic officers will follow the ECSO lead and actually LOOK for speeders/bad drivers instead of waiting for the speeders to come to them.