By BOB MARTIN
Eagle Times Staff
NEWPORT, N.H. — In an effort to curb speeding in areas that have statistically shown to have more accidents, Newport Police officers spent Monday actively pulling over speeders resulting in 17 traffic stops over three separate hour-long stints.
The streets of the directed patrol included Maple Street, Bradford Road, Unity Road and Elm Street. Newport Police posted about the patrol on Facebook Tuesday, letting the public know that they are monitoring the areas and will continue to do so.
“We’ve been receiving complaints about those areas for years,” Chief Stephen “Alex” Lee said. “Those are also areas that our accident data shows a higher rate of accidents than other areas in town.”
Lee explained that on Monday there were three different hour shifts where he had an “all hands on deck” approach. Administrative officers including Lee and the lieutenant, along with detectives including the school resource officer, got into uniform to help on-duty patrol officers. Newport also requested assistance from the Sullivan County Sheriff’s Office to provide resources to combat speeding and aggressive driving, and there will be sheriff’s deputies assigned to conduct patrols where the most complaints are received.
“Most of the time we have either one, or at most two, regular on-duty patrol officers at any given time,” Lee said. “So, to boost their numbers, administration and detectives helped put three or four cars on the road during peak traffic hours.”
The department had a morning, mid-day and night patrol, and the stops resulted in both citations and warnings for violations like speeding and thru trucking.
“While no amount of enforcement will ever completely eliminate this issue, we recognize that speeding on secondary roads is the most common complaint received from the community about our performance as a department,” the Newport Police Department posted on Facebook.
He said speeds recorded were across the board, but nothing over the top.
“It was kind of like a bell curve,” Lee said. “The majority of vehicles were within 10 miles per hour of the limit on either side, but you get a couple outliers at a much higher rate of speed.
There were no arrests made from the traffic stops for speeding or any other offenses, with Lee saying if this ends up being the case he will include this in an update like what was made on social media.
Lee said that while the department does use various grants, this patrol was just part of the regular duties of the personnel. However, Newport Police does receive Highway Safety grants, which were used to add two more blinking traffic signs that are known to help reduce speeds of travelers. Currently there is one on Bradford Road, one on Elm Street and two on Sunapee Street.
“We will apply for another two in the next federal fiscal year to keep adding more and more locations where we can put those in,” Lee said.
Lee explained that these directed patrols will be taking place unannounced throughout the summer months, as well.
“We will be doing these directed patrols every single day throughout the summer and posting results like this,” Lee said. “The hope is to get the message out and people will voluntarily comply.”
