Traffic Campaign

Jan 24, 2013 at 03:52 pm by bryan


Drivers who violate safety laws can expect to be stopped by extra Rutherford County Sheriff’s deputies during the “More Cops, More Stops” campaign from Friday, Jan. 25 through Super Bowl Sunday, Feb. 3, a sheriff’s patrol supervisor said.

Deputies will concentrate on drivers who drink and drive, text, speed or fail to wear their seat belts during the late evening and nighttime hours, said Patrol Capt. Egon Grissom. The campaign is designed to increase awareness among Tennesseans to think before driving carelessly and endangering themselves and others.

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“This is a concentrated effort to remind people of wearing your seat belt, not speeding and not driving distracted,” Grissom said. “Failure to wear a seat belt, drunk driving, speeding, and distracted driving is killing Tennesseans every single day. So we’re going to be out in force cracking down on those who break our laws with a special ‘More Cops. More Stops’ enforcement blitz to remind drivers to drive safely and to save more lives on Tennessee roadways.”

Deputies will concentrate patrols on high crash areas such as Interstate 24 and Old Barfield Road.

The Governor’s Highway Safety Office reported more than 700 passenger occupants were killed in traffic fatalities last year in Tennessee. Fifty-seven percent of those killed failed to wear their seat belts. Speeding was a factor in 23 percent of these deaths. Alcohol was listed as a factor in 27 percent of the deaths.

Simply wearing a seat belt is the single most effective way to reduce fatalities in motor vehicle crashes, GHSO reported.

GHSO will pay deputies who participate in the Combined Messaging Enforcement for Tennessee campaign. Tennessee law enforcement is teaming with the U.S. Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) on this important demonstration project testing the effectiveness of a combined enforcement crackdown.

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