Area law enforcement stepping up patrols for speeders

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Law enforcement authorities in Mountain Home, across the state and in five other states will concentrate their patrol assignments on speeding violations during the weekend. According to Mountain Home Police Sergeant Bryan Corbett, “Obey the sign or pay the fine,” is a multijurisdictional speed enforcement campaign designed to crack down on speeding offenses and make highway travel safer across Arkansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, Kansas, Iowa, and Nebraska.Law enforcement across the state will patrol approximately 500 miles of roadway. They will concentrate on high traffic corridors in an effort to put motorists on guard and encourage safe driving.

In Arkansas during 2015, there were a total of 531 traffic fatalities with 17 percent of them being related to excessive speed. According to the latest data from National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, speeding was a contributing factor in 27 percent of all fatal crashes in the U.S. during 2015 equating to more than 9,500 lives lost.

Federal highway safety experts consider a motor vehicle crash to be speed related if the driver is charged with exceeding the posted speed limit or if the driver was driving too fast for conditions at the time.

The risk of a crash on a road with a speed limit of 65 miles-per-hour or greater is more than twice as likely to result in a fatality as on a road with a 45 or 50 miles-per-hour speed limit. The danger of speeding is not limited to highways. Seventeen percent of speed related traffic fatalities during 2015 occurred on local roads where the posted speed limits were 55 miles-per-hour or less.

Corbett says the goal of the campaign is to save lives and the posted speed limit is the law. There will be no warnings and no excuses accepted.

For more information visit trafficsafetymarketing.gov/.

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