Allen Police cracking down on aggressive driving and reckless speeding
NORTH TEXAS — Aggressive driving and reckless speeding have taken over North Texas freeways.
That's what one area police department believes and has a new effort underway to stop it.
When Rashee Rice and another driver wrecked on Central Expressway in Dallas after reaching speeds close to 120 miles per hour, it didn't surprise North Texans like Louis Carter.
"I've had this several times on Bush," said Louis Carter, a Richardson resident. "Especially people passing you at 100 miles an hour."
Speed limits are too often just suggestions for aggressive drivers on area freeways and tollways. We even captured vehicles with student driver markings passing traffic above 80 miles per hour.
"I would say our average we're seeing on the higher end, 120, 125," said Allen Police Department Cpl. Mike Canon. "I mean, there's a couple of outliers that get even higher."
Canon knows better than anyone how fast traffic is moving in Allen as a police officer who watches every day with his radar gun.
He says he's writing more citations than ever on 75 and 121 because of a new initiative to combat aggressive driving that the Allen Police Department began on May 1.
Canon says the public reaction has so far been positive from those who are seeing it firsthand.
"A motorist actually pulled into the lane next to the where the suspect vehicle was," Canon said. "And as I was guarding that suspect vehicle over to the shoulder, he's rolling his window down, giving me a thumbs up. You know, cheering. So I would think that's kind of an indicator that, you know, people are okay with this."
Allen Police say they had more than 3,200 vehicle crashes in the city last year causing more than 500 injuries.
Canon believes a lot of people started driving faster during the pandemic when the roads were more open.
"And I think those those habits that people formed during that time frame, they never kicked them," said Canon."This initiative is not just enforcing aggressive driving and speeding it's also targeting violators of the move-over law."
That law requires motorists to pull over and leave an open lane when they pass a traffic stop or if they can't, at least slow down to 20 miles per hour below the speed limit.
Twenty-seven percent of the officers killed in North Texas last year were from traffic-related injuries.
Because freeway enforcement is so dangerous, a number of departments have let speeding on them go unenforced.
But not in Allen, where the police department says speeding drivers on busy freeways and tollways will no longer get away with putting the pedal to the metal.