For the past five years, the Office of Traffic Safety (OTS)for the State of California has funded the City of San Rafael Police Department to act as liaison agency for The Marin Police Chief’s Association for the purpose of coordinating the “Avoid the Marin 13” DUI reduction campaign. In 2005, OTS funded the Police Department to coordinate a statewide “Avoid” publicity campaign to educate other cities and counties on successful publicity programs. In 2006, OTS awarded $24,916 to the Police Department to enforce seatbelt compliance in the City of San Rafael.
With the track record we have established with these enforcement efforts, we were awarded additional funding through September 2008 to address the inordinate number of suspended, revoked or unlicensed drivers that drive unlawfully in the city. The Department collision statistics indicate that these unlicensed and suspended drivers account for over 15 % of all vehicle collisions. The Department has also struggled to reduce fatal and injury collisions involving pedestrians and bicyclists. Collision data from the 2004 base year indicated that approximately 76% of all collisions occurred in intersections. Of these collisions, approximately 10% were caused by driver’s failing to stop for red lights. More significantly, if a collision occurred as a result of a red light runner, there was a 33% chance that the collision resulted in an injury or fatality
The Department encourages patrol officers and traffic officers for enforcement focused on reducing the volume of illegal drivers, red light runners and drivers who speed to increase pedestrian and bicyclist safety. Unfortunately, due to major changes in crime reporting processes and significant staffing shortages, the workload per Officer has increased dramatically which has resulted in a significant decrease in proactive enforcement by officers. STEP will greatly increase this department’s ability to employ enforcement and innovative strategies to reduce persons killed or injured in traffic collisions. Although the workload per Officer has increased, our arrest of unlicensed or suspended drivers remains very high. With a focused enforcement plan designed through a Strategic Traffic Enforcement Program, this department will be more successful in curbing the problems associated with unlicensed and suspended drivers, red light runners, speeding vehicles, aggressive driving and increase pedestrian and bicyclist safety.
The STEP program will use overtime to employ enforcement and innovative strategies to reduce persons killed and injured in traffic collisions. The funded strategies include DUI/Driver's License checkpoints and DUI roving patrols. This program will also develop a 'Hot Sheet' program to notify patrol and traffic officers to be on the lookout for identified repeat DUI offenders with suspended or revoked licenses as a result of DUI convictions. Enforcement operations will target red light runners, aggressive speeders, drivers with vehicles equipped with illegal street racing equipment, and unbelted vehicle occupants. Additionally, enforcement operations will be directed to intersections with disproportionate numbers of traffic crashes. The STEP program will seek voluntary compliance with traffic laws by generating publicity throughout the grant period. Overtime for Officers will be used to conduct these operations.