Colorado Springs police unit focuses on catching speeding drivers

Chances are you’ve broken the law once or twice, especially when it comes to speeding.

Now, Colorado Springs Police are cracking down on people who break that law, in a big way. The motor unit made up of 16 motorcycle officers is taking the time to sit and wait for speeding drivers to come by.

The push from law enforcement is a result of a near-record year of traffic fatalities. In 2018, there have been 40 fatalities on the road, close to the all-time high of 43 made in 1986.

Sgt. Patrick David leads the motor unit in charge of catching speeding drivers. He says, “we try to go out like this at least once or twice a week if we can.”

Sgt. David sits at the top of an intersection, meanwhile, patrol officers are farther down the road. With a radar gun, David finds the drivers who are going up above the speed limit and then one of his officers goes after them.

If there’s something all the drivers who are caught have in common, it’s usually their excuses for speeding. Their examples are, “the person next to me was speeding. I was following the flow of traffic. That’s the biggest one we hear. People say you know I’m late and I’m in a hurry, those are typical ones,” David said.

With the number of traffic fatalities increasing, David wants drivers to “realize that you speeding and you might think its only 10-15 miles an hour over could be that 10 or 15 miles an hour that you needed to slow down for a pedestrian crossing the road.”

While they can’t catch them, police officers hope to catch the ones they can prevent bigger accidents in the future.