Crime & Safety

Police Net 24 Speeders During Traffic Sting

Public Safety is monitoring speeding, cell phone use, driving under the influence and other safety issues on the city's streets in the coming months as part of a national grant.

Speeders beware — police are beefing up patrols to enforce strict speed limits, watching for distracted drivers using their phones behind the wheel and ramping up driving under the influence checks in Rohnert Park, as part of a yearlong campaign to make the city's street safer. 

Thursday alone, officers with the Department of Public Safety ticketed 24 drivers in a speeding sting, where they monitored drivers on Redwood Drive and Rohnert Park Expressway.  

"Speed continues to be the highest cause of collisions in the city," police said in a statement. 

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The crackdown comes just two weeks after . Citizens raised concern, citing already-unsafe drivers speeding on Commerce Boulevard, Golf Course Drive, Country Club and Rohnert Park Expressway.

"The speed limit at 45 mph on RP Expressway from Country Club to Snyder Lane is too excessive!" one reader wrote.

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Some said the limits needed to be raised, however. The results of , asking drivers to weigh in on the issue of how speed limits are set and whether or not they're safe here, came in two weeks after the limits were increased. Fifty percent of voters said the city's streets are generally safe. Thirty-two percent said that on major thoroughfares, cars should slow down; just 15 percent said speeds are too fast. 

Police will continue roadway safety and traffic stings throughout 2012 as part of a grant awarded by the California Office of Traffic Safety, through the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. The department was given $73,000 to use to monitor speeds and other safety issues, such as distracted driving. 

The department has planned driver and license checkpoints, electronic traffic monitoring and special enforcement operations, such as Thursday's speed sting.

The goal, officers said, is to prevent deaths and injuries on the city's roadways and to improve the quality of life here. Police here know all-too-well the dangers of unsafe practices behind the wheel. Rohnert Park Police were the first on scene when Dec. 1, 2010 by a distracted driver.

“Rohnert Park Public Safety is excited and honored that we were selected for this Office of Traffic Safety grant," said Police Chief Brian Masterson. "This grant will provide an increased measure of safety to the citizens of Rohnert Park on our public roadways. Our mission statement is to be the safest city along the 101 corridor."


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