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FARMINGTON — About a dozen troopers with the Utah Highway Patrol set out on their motorcycles in force, along I-15 and Legacy Parkway Tuesday morning in Davis County, in an effort to make the roads safer.
“We do these throughout the state, through the summer,” Sgt. Danny Allen said. “We sit higher than you would in a car. We can observe more violations.”
Aimed at aggressive drivers and vehicles that violate safety standards, the operation that Sgt. Allen and others are part of is known as hot spot enforcement. Their goal is to reduce the number of deadly crashes during what is often called the 100 Deadliest Days. So far, since the start of 2018, 117 people have died in crashes on Utah roads.
We sit higher than you would in a car. We can observe more violations.
–Sgt. Danny Allen, UHP motorcycle trooper
“The speeds just tend to pick up,” Allen explained. “Because, in their mind, a dry road, they can do whatever they think is safe.”
Allen adds that since vehicle registrations no longer require a safety inspection, the number of violations he’s seen appears to be going up.
“When they go register their vehicle, it’s not a part of the process, so to them it implies that 'I don’t have to follow that rule anymore,'” Allen said. “It’s jumped up to a lot more of the colored headlights, tinted headlights. I’ve seen full windshields tinted, tinted tail lights. It’s almost a free-for-all right now, and that’s unacceptable.”
Related:
Utah road fatalities due to aggressive driving more than doubled in 2017
Fewer people were killed on Utah's roads in 2017 than the year before, but that's no reason to celebrate, UDOT says.The motor squad has already conducted hot spot enforcements in Weber and Box Elder counties. Allen says they do them about four to five times a month during the summer, running through each major county, all the way down to Washington County. He says sometimes drivers will see them and warn others, but he doesn’t mind.
“People are getting the word out, and that’s what we want to see,” Allen said. “We want to have a visible impact on that community, on that area, so that they can remember that we’re out here trying to keep them safe.”
