Alabama troopers declare war on speeders
The number of speeding tickets issued across Alabama is bound to increase this week.
More than 125 additional state troopers are on the roads, now through Sunday, looking for speeders and drunk drivers. The effort is for the statewide "Take Back Our Highways" traffic safety campaign, which started Monday.
"It's really not about tickets," said Col. Chris Murphy, director of the Alabama department of public safety. "We are out to change behavior."
As part of the campaign, troopers set up at Interstate 85 Exit 66 in Opelika Tuesday for a LIDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) detail. They positioned an unmarked vehicle on the overpass and a number of marked vehicles on the northbound entrance ramp.
Sgt. Robert Watson watched the northbound traffic with a LIDAR gun to determine which vehicles were approaching the construction zone faster than the posted 50 mile per hour limit.
A dispatcher, sitting in his passenger seat, would radio a trooper, waiting on the ramp, with a description of the speeding vehicle.
During the hour that the Opelika-Auburn News crew was present, from 2 to 3 p.m., one trooper clocked 10 speeders. There were eight troopers on the detail at the time. A total count for the day was unavailable Tuesday evening.
Monday, the first day of this year's campaign, troopers issued 1,633 speeding tickets and 805 seat belt or child restraint violations. They also made 14 DUI arrests, according to Murphy.
The Department of Public Safety estimates that more than 150 lives have been saved in the last 18 months because of the effort.
