OK - Tulsa Police Department is kicking off Stop on Red Week
Stop On Red Week
KOTV - 8/6/2006 6:23 PM - Updated: 8/7/2006 6:05 AM
The Tulsa Police Department is kicking off "Stop on Red Week" a national campaign to stop red light runners.
Tulsa Police write more than a thousand tickets a year for running red lights and the News on 6's Joshua Brakhage says they are getting geared up to write a lot more.
Tulsa Police Sgt. Rick Bondy says there's no crash more dangerous than the one that happens after a driver runs a red light. Instead of a fender bender, cars usually end up T-boned, with the driver's or passenger's door smashed in.
Already this year, 2 people have been killed in crashes with red light runners. Bondy says drivers speed through red lights, without worrying who they'll hit, or if Tulsa Police may be watching.
"They'll sit at an intersection and someone will run the light right in front of them."
Two Tulsa intersections are already considered among the most dangerous in the country. 71st and Memorial and 51st and Memorial. Sgt. Bondy says most of the time when he stops red light runners, they don't offer an excuse. They just say the light wasn't red when they ran it. "When it's blatantly, cars stopped, horns honking, run a red light, they'll still say it was yellow.
Other cities have camera systems that take photographs of cars' license plates as they speed through red lights. All Tulsa has are white lights. They light up when the signal turns red, so officers can catch red light runners from a distance.
But it still takes an officer to witness the offense. For the next week, more officers will be watching white lights to make sure more drivers are seeing red.
