Pa. State Police To Ramp Up Summer Speed Enforcement

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) -- The holiday weekend might be in the rearview mirror but the police summer crackdown on the roads is just beginning.

As one driver observed "Everybody's trying to get somewhere just a little bit faster."

While they are being polite about it the police say we've emerged from pandemic lockdown with a bit of an attitude behind the wheel.

The State Police say speeds are up, agressive driving is up, and they want to get it under control before deaths are up.

"I play with the five mile an hour rule," one woman commented when asked about how she approaches her speed on the highway. Others took a similar approach, "I think most people experience if you're about five over there, probably let you go."

"The law is, you are to abide by the posted speed limit," says Pa. State Trooper Melinda Bondarenka. "There's no grace in the law, the five to ten miles per hour over things is not a fact. You can get pulled over for that."

Trooper Bonderanka understands that drivers take an 'everybody does it' approach. " That doesn't mean that it's the right thing to do, you do have speeders out there and that's why there's law enforcement out there to protect, to protect the motoring public and to hopefully get those aggressive drivers and speeders to slow down."

Beyond speed police will be actively looking for, "People that aren't using turn signals, people that aren't staying within their lane of travel, people that are tailgating and texting."

Many of those qualities fall into the heading of Agressive Driving which is what leads to problems for other drivers on the road. "You have a potential for a crash, you have the potential for another angry driver who wouldn't have been angry if there wasn't that aggressive driver."

Also looked for stepped up enforcement of the beefed up 'Move Over Law' that requires you to get into the other lane or slow down significantly when passing someone on the shoulder of the road. Trp. Bondarenka says moving over is crucial, "When you're looking at something and your hands are on a steering wheel, what happens, you tend to go towards that direction which causes a danger to those first responders or those motorists that are in that area."

Speed enforcement in construction zones is also being stepped up.

The automated speed enforcement cameras are out there in construction zones working daily to try to slow you down and protect the construction workers.