Ross Township police use drones for traffic enforcement
ROSS TOWNSHIP, Pa. (KDKA) — They're silent, small and hover in the air, and the Ross Township Police Department said they're being used to assist in traffic enforcement.
The Ross Township Police Department said it has multiple officers with pilot licenses who use drones for stop sign enforcement.
"Our goal here is to make it safer for the motoring public. This isn't an ah-gotcha-sort-of-a thing, and we're predominantly using this in areas where we can't otherwise monitor the stop sign with a patrol car," said Brian Koelhepp, deputy police chief at the Ross Township Police Department.
Koelhepp said the idea came after the department's traffic division realized drones could be used in areas where officers have a difficult time placing a police car or motorcycle.
"Anytime there's any interference with traffic, we're making it less safe for everyone that's on the roadway. And that's the opposite thing we're trying to do when we're doing traffic law enforcement. So, through the use of the drone, we can monitor the stop sign for any potential violations from the drone safely away from the area," Koelhepp said.
From the police department parking lot, Koelhepp said an officer can monitor a stop sign on Babcock Boulevard to McKnight Road. KDKA-TV's cameras caught four drivers in a row running the stop sign there on Friday.
Koelhepp said if there's a violation, they'll call it into an officer parked down the road.
"We would have the officer on the drone watching it, and then we would have another officer and a marked patrol car further down the road where they could conduct the traffic stop, and they could pull the car over once it's communicated to them," Koelhepp said.
Some who live and shop in Ross Township had mixed reactions to the drones on Friday.
"I don't know about the drones. It's an invasion of everything," Dolly Martin said.
"I think that's preventing death or more accidents, so I think it's a good thing," Eric Happy said.
Koelhepp said the department uses the drones for stop sign enforcement almost daily and has already written out tickets. But he stresses that the department is only using drones for traffic enforcement.
"We don't use the drones to do surveillance. We don't use them to look in backyards. We don't use them to look in windows. The only time that we do that is if we are on a crisis situation, where it's something where the tactical team or SRT team has been deployed," Koelhepp said.
He does hope to use drones in the future for speed enforcement.
"We've done some studies. We clocked over 160 cars and we had an operator using a drone and clocking the vehicle speed. At the same time, we were clocking our speed with a different device that utilizes lasers that we already use now for speed enforcement. And of the over 160 cars we clocked, we were getting a deviation of less than half a percent, so it's less than 1 mile an hour difference from the laser device to using the drone," Koelhepp said. "So, we're still exploring that, and we're going to be in conversation with the district attorney's office to see about using it for speed enforcement."