Gas prices may be affecting scofflaws

KOB.com - Gas prices may be affecting scofflaws

Gas prices may be affecting scofflaws

Officers manning a speed trap Wednesday discovered some driving habits are changing – possibly because of the sharply higher cost of a gallon of gasoline.
Speeders are still speeding. They’re just not speeding as fast.

At the operation at Interstate 40 and Tramway, officers with the Motor Transportation Division of the state Department of Public Safety still managed to write over a hundred tickets during Wednesday’s operation, which featured two “stealth” cars positioned on an overpass and eight officers patrolling the canyon.

“We are not seeing the speeds as much as we did,” said Sergeant Charles Vannatta, noting a scofflaw going 51 miles an hour in a 45 mile an hour zone.

What he is seeing, though, is an increasing number of drivers practicing “drafting” – pulling up close behind large trucks in an effort to get caught up in their draft and increase gas mileage.

“We are seeing a lot more following too close,” said Vannatta, who added he’d rather hand out tickets than pry someone out from beneath a semi.

And, Vanatta says, officers are seeing a larger number of people driving too slow, again a possible reaction to high gas prices.

“Driving too slow is sometimes more dangerous that going too fast,” he said.

Motor Transportation Division officers will be staging another speed trap Thursday somewhere along Interstate 25 as part of a nationwide campaign to crackdown on dangerous drivers that will continue throughout the summer.

Actaully, what they are seeing is the fact people are slowing down therefore the police are looking for other reasons to write a ticket. They are now noticing what people have always done, but since it was just easier to write a speeding ticket the police only looked for that.

So when the officer knows he needs to write so many tickets and it is coming to the end of the month and his ticket numbers are not adding up he looking for any other reason to write a ticket.

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Originally Posted by erickonphoenix

“Driving too slow is more dangerous than going too fast,” he said.

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There, corrected that line for you/them. ;)

I find that prevaling traffic flow is slower now with the higher gas prices. Of course, that means less speeding, and more traffic congestion. :mad:

If they want to meet quota, what they should do is pull over and ticket left lane hogs. There's more of those than "speeders" these days.

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Originally Posted by kpatz

There, corrected that line for you/them. ;)

I find that prevaling traffic flow is slower now with the higher gas prices. Of course, that means less speeding, and more traffic congestion. :mad:

If they want to meet quota, what they should do is pull over and ticket left lane hogs. There's more of those than "speeders" these days.

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Left lane is for passing only everywhere IMO... they need to make it illegal and crack down on hogging it and or going slow in it...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by kpatz

There, corrected that line for you/them. ;)

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Yeah, I loved that line from the story.