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12.28.2001 10:40
He's putting
the brakes
on speeders
BY PAUL DAVIS
Journal Staff Writer
SOUTH KINGSTOWN
-- Caught up in a fast-food, instant-message world, drivers here zipped through the year.
Police Officer Paul Horoho tried to slow them down.
In fact, he stopped more than 1,230 drivers, an average of more than 100 a month. He gave a little more than half of them warnings. The others he gave, for the most part, speeding tickets, with fines ranging from $50 to $270. He even asked a Town Council member to ease up.
"People are slowing down," said the 38-year-old officer, who recently won a commendation -- and two days off with pay -- for creating the department's 18-month-old traffic safety program.
"We've earned a reputation and people know we're on the road," he said.
This is not a campaign where police hide behind billboards. On most days, overtime officers park their cruisers on the shoulders of heavily traveled streets -- places such as Middlebridge Road, Robinson Street and Broad Rock and Post Roads. They use radar guns and lasers to tag drivers going 45 miles an hour in 25-mile-an-hour zones.
"We've put up signs. We've been in all the papers. We've been on talk radio and we've been on all the major TV stations," Horoho said. The traffic program is no secret. "The odds of getting caught in South Kingstown are much greater" than in years past, he said.
Indeed. The first year of the program, from July 1, 2000, to June 30, 2001, police officers wrote 9,681 traffic tickets -- nearly triple the number the year before. And the beefed-up patrol netted the town more than $470,000 in collected fines.
Officers working in the so-called Traffic Awareness Program have shown no signs of easing up this year.
From July 1 to Dec. 20, they stopped 6,640 drivers, issued 3,733 warnings and wrote 2,897 tickets, most of them for speeding. They also cited 200 drivers for ignoring the red light on a traffic signal on Route 138 in Kingston.
As a result, there were 23 fewer accidents and 51 fewer injuries this year than last, said Horoho.
"Drivers traveling 25 miles an hour are much less likely to crash into the car ahead of them if traffic suddenly jams up," he said.
The number of traffic fatalities this year also fell to two from three last year. The two fatalities, however, weren't typical speeding cases but instead involved alcohol and criminal activity, Horoho said.
To support the program, 35 of the department's 55 officers work overtime during 20 extra shifts a week. Last year's program cost the department more than $100,000 in overtime.
Police Chief Vincent Vespia has asked the town to pay for the program again next year.
"There will be additional cars on New Year's Eve," Horoho said. "We're going to have a high visibility all day long" to remind residents heading to parties not to drink and drive.
The good news? The police aren't pulling over drivers who are going a few miles over the speed limit. If you've never been stopped before, you'll probably get a warning, Horoho said. A good attitude helps, he added.
Horoho, who joined the department 15 years ago as a part-time dispatcher, isn't naive about the program.
"I don't think everyone's slowing down because it's the safe thing to do," he said. "But that's okay. If they're slowing down because they don't want to get caught," the result is the same -- "a safer community," he said.
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