I'm sticking by my assertion from last November made in the post titled "Does the whole County need remedial driving class?" because things do not appear to have improved. As Sergeant Phil Esterhaus said on Hill Street Blues at the start of every shift "Let's be careful out there". He was talking to the officers; I refer to the officers and drivers and pedestrians and cyclists.
Back in January we did the annual round-up of crime in town here. Now BPD has made available the annual traffic enforcement numbers, so here they are:
2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022
Reported Vehicle Accidents 317 324 300 200 199 252
Traffic Stops 5,003 4,620 5.981 3,413 4,548 3,567
Moving Citations Issued 2,615 2,448 3,234 1,421 2,264 1,856
Following one of the principles of the Voice (i.e. "A numerator without a denominator is useless"), I confirmed with the Chief that officer hours-on-the-street are essentially the same over the seven years. The only real conclusion I can make from the stats is the Covid lockdown years led to a 30-50% decrease in accidents, stops and citations. The rebound last year was fairly slow as well.
It would be easy to attribute the numbers to more working-from-home, crazy gas prices, kids postponing getting their licenses, or whatever else you can think of, but they show stability--at least in B'game. The denominator we don't have is miles-driven in town. Update: A reader requested some further breakdown of the types of citations in the total, so BPD has been able to peel the onion a bit. Here are some key categories:
- Distracted driving (cellphones): 31%
- Speed: 19%
- Stop signs: 13%
- Failure to obey a sign other than a stop sign (i.e. no left turn sign, no right on red sign, etc.): 9%
- Failure to yield to a pedestrian: 2%
- Vehicles driving in bike lanes: 2%
- Failure to yield while turning: 1%
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