BLUEFIELD — In an effort to reduce traffic-related accidents and fatalities, officers with the state Public Service Commission’s Transportation Enforcement Division are launching an increased safety enforcement campaign on U.S. Route 52 in southern West Virginia.
The overtime officer enforcement campaign begins today and continues through September, according to Gary Edgell, director of the commission’s transportation enforcement division.
“As a general rule, we always have an officer on Route 52 on a weekly basis although there are days we can’t get there because of available resources,” Edgell said. “With this (grant) our presence will definitely increase. The reason we identified those two areas — Route 119 and Route 52 — is we did a data analysis on those particular routes, and found the volume of traffic is considerably higher there. The accidents were up a little bit in those areas. We look for where there is potential, and the potential is there for accidents.”
Edgell said coal trucks, and logging trucks, are among the most common commercial vehicles on Route 52.
The increased enforcement effort is being funded by a grant awarded to the commission’s enforcement division by the Federal Motor Carriers Safety Administration to assist with the agency’s goal of reducing commercial motor-vehicle related fatalities from 2.12 in 2007 to 0.16 fatalities per 100 million vehicle miles traveled by the year 2011.
The officers will be focusing on multiple violations, including following too closely, improper lane changes, improper passing, failure to yield the right-of-way, unsafe equipment, and driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs. Residential vehicles will not be targeted by commissioner officers as part of the campaign — only commercial motor vehicle traffic. However, Edgell said troopers with the West Virginia State Police will be working hand-in-hand with the transportation enforcement officers during the campaign, and the troopers will be looking for passenger vehicle violations as part of their normal duties.
Edgell said the primary goal of the campaign is to reduce crashes while increasing safety for everyone on highways. Through the overtime effort, Edgell said officials hope to increase inspections in the targeted areas — Route 52 and U.S. Route 119 — by 10 percent and by 3 percent in other high-crash areas throughout the state.
“We have according to our data — over the last five years — we have reduced commercial vehicle fatalities in West Virginia,” Edgell said. “The trend has been downward and evidence of the fact is that five years ago we had 65 commercial motor vehicle related fatalities in West Virginia highways. In 2009, we had 32 commercial motor vehicle fatalities in West Virginia. So that trends downward.”
– Contact Charles Owens at cowens@bdtonline.com
Local News
March 19, 2010
Officer overtime aims to make Route 52 safer
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