RICHMOND, Va. (WRIC) — Richmond police are revealing the results of their 90-day road safety campaign after last year ended with almost 30 deadly crashes.
Acting Major Donald Davenport with the department’s patrol services announced the Roadway Safety Reinforcement campaign back in December alongside Mayor Levar Stoney and the city’s engineer.
The goal was to reduce dangerous driving behaviors like speeding, impaired and inattentive driving. Davenport said the city had nearly 30 fatal crashes in 2022, so Acting Chief Rick Edwards wanted to try something different.
“It was a road safety initiative he wanted to make a huge priority when he stepped in this role,” Davenport said. “I don’t mean to say that we waited until the end of the year, no. We knew this was a problem. We have a multitude of different programs and tactics that we use, but the Roadway Safety Initiative was huge.”
The campaign spanned from Dec. 12 to March 12. Davenport said the number of tickets they issued during the period of Dec. 12 to Feb. 28 went up by 17% compared to the same time last year. The amount of speeding tickets also went up by 29% in that time frame.
One of the things that was different about this initiative was the number of officers certified to use radars to enforce the speed limit.
“During this initiative, the amount of summonses that the four precincts wrote went up by 53% compared to this time last year,” Davenport said. “We really got a lot of good involvement from the precincts with the officers out there running radar.”
Richmond Police also received support from other law enforcement agencies like Virginia State Police and Virginia Commonwealth University Police.
“When we ended with a number of fatal crashes last year that was the highest the city of Richmond has ever seen, anybody was compelled to do something,” Davenport said.
Martha Prosser lives in the Forest View neighborhood on West 49th Street. She said she’s experienced dangerous driving on her road for several years.
“My car was hit. My roommate’s car was hit. People just flying up the street didn’t bother stopping,” she said. “I really am afraid that there’s going to be more and more accidents around here.”
She hopes Richmond police continue their efforts to keep the roads, pedestrians and cyclists safe.
“We’re not done,” Davenport added. “It’s not just a 90-day thing and then we move on to something else. The safety of our roadways and our citizens is paramount,” “This is going to continue to evolve. We need to study and learn more about what we learned in the last 90 days and how we can make that even better.”
