MAYFIELD, Ohio — If you often find yourself speeding on the highway, you need to slow down.
That’s the message coming from the Mayfield Village Police Department after finding that the number of speeders on the city’s stretch of highway has more than doubled in the last 2 years.
Chief Paul Matias has been studying data provided by the Ohio Department of Transportation’s traffic monitoring system and was surprised by what he found. The system has the ability to monitor traffic volume, speed, and the size of different vehicles passing along a specific stretch of highway. In the case, the system Matias refererences covers northbound lanes of I-271 near Highland Road.
Compared to 2019, the average number of speeders going 85 miles per hour or more each day has increased more than 100 percent, from roughly 400+ each day to more than 800.
“The average speeding ticket we’re writing right now is 89 mph,” said Matias. “And that’s almost 30 mph over the limit. And that’s common. It use to be very rare that you’d see that.”
On Friday, the system tracked 869 drivers traveling 85+ miles per hour, with 45 of them going over 100 miles per hour. 60,601 cars were tallied by the system that day.
“The speeds are ridiculous. And I think a lot of people don’t feel safe driving on the freeway,” said Matias.
Aside from drivers going too fast, others aren’t moving during traffic stops, putting officers’ lives at risk when standing on the side of the highway. For that reason, Matias decided to turn to technolody to help curb the speeding issue. Village council passed an ordinance Monday that allows officers to operate photo enforcement devices on the highway.
“We’re not doing fixed camera,” said Matias who wanted to be clear that officers must still do the work. “These are officer-operated lasers (that detect speed). The only difference between what we’re doing now and what we were doing then is it has a camera attached to it.”
Using the new system, tickets will be sent to a vehicle’s registered owner by mail. Fines range from $150 for those less than 20mph over the speed limit, to $300 for those more than 30mph over the limit. The goal of the program is to get driver’s to slow down and is not based on revenue.
“We’re not doing this to try to write tickets,” said Matias. “We’re doing this to collectively get people to slow down a little bit.”
Matias says the program is fully approved and will be implemented soon. And he hopes it deters people who have been willingly breaking the law.
“We’ll have to evaluate and see how it works. I’m really hoping it has an effect.”
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