Mounted deputies use more traditional approach to target speeders
Drivers in El Paso County may have caught a unique sight Tuesday, with deputies on horseback catching speeders.
It’s a unique twist to the statewide traffic surge enforcement operation going on this holiday week.
From a distance, nothing seemed out of the ordinary.
It appeared two men were sitting on horseback alongside Curtis Road east of Falcon, which is not an uncommon sight for that area.
However, those two men were actually deputies armed with a speed gun and radios.
When cars came past going too fast, they radioed to other deputies in nearby patrol cars who then went after the violators.
“What I want to see is how people are driving when they don’t think the police are around,” explains Sgt. Jason Haag with the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office’s Traffic Enforcement Unit.
“If there’s a horse on the side of the road, they can actually get a real good look at how people are driving and their behaviors, how they are acting when they’re not seeing a patrol car in their area,” he said.
The sneaky scenario might seem like a trivial game of cat and mouse, but there was no horsing around Tuesday.
“On Curtis specifically, it's a 45MPH speed zone. We see speeds typically starting at 60, all the way up into the 90s,” explains Haag.
During a previous mounted operation along Highway 94, deputies wrote nearly 150 tickets in four hours.
While Tuesday’s final numbers weren’t available, it seemed the team was on pace to meet or exceed that.
The goal, however, isn’t just to write citations.
“We want them to get to their Thanksgiving dinner, spend the time with their family and friends safely, and we want them to get there and enjoy that time with their family,” says Haag.
Statewide, the number of crashes involving deaths or serious injuries is down.
El Paso County, which lead the state in fatalities in 2023, is also seeing a downward trend.
Haag predicts El Paso County’s final tally of lives lost in crashes will be down about 20 by the end of the year compared to last year.
Anyone who spots a dangerous driver on any highway in Colorado can call *55 on a cell phone and be routed to the appropriate agency.
