GEORGETOWN, Ky. (LEX 18) — The Georgetown Police Department noticed a significant problem on a stretch of Interstate 75 running through their city, so they are taking proactive action.
“It was about four officers and a couple of guys from patrol helped. We stopped over 100 vehicles and issued well over 100 citations. The speeds were averaging above 85 mph and got a Corvette at 109 mph,” Chief Darin Allgood said.
That happened during a single four-hour period last week, during which the department increased their monitoring of the area. They did, and will continue to do, this because the amount of speeding infractions in Georgetown between mile markers 125 and 129 in both directions has become a serious problem. It’s also led to an abnormal number of accidents along this stretch.
“That particular stretch of road there's been 63 traffic crashes this year. A lot of the factors are different, but one that stuck out was speed related,” Chief Allgood explained.
Allgood noted that a $10,000 grant from the Kentucky Office of Highway Safety has allowed his department to increase these patrols, as that money will cover the officers’ overtime pay. For him, it’s well worth the investment, because as he noted, a time-consuming accident on 75 has an impact everywhere else in his city.
“Takes officers away from being proactive and preventing crimes and things like that, so it does have a domino effect from the interstate into the local streets in the city,” the chief stated, before adding that traffic on the city streets naturally increases when an accident either shuts down or slows traffic down on 75.
Allgood, who used social media to alert Georgetown residents of the added patrols, stressed that this has nothing to do with making monthly citation quotas, even if that’s what many seem to think.
“We don’t have quotas, our officers are out there first week, second week, third week and fourth week of the month. Their goal is to get the public to comply with the traffic laws and to be safe,” he said.
Continued targeted patrols of the area are expected in the coming weeks and months.
