Traffic study leads to aggressive driving crack down in two Pittsburgh area communities

A traffic study by the North Strabane Township Police Department led to a combined police effort to crack down on dangerous driving. 

Over the past couple of weeks, hundreds of stops were made on Waterdam Road, which is split between North Strabane and Peters townships. 

Police said throughout June, the traffic study results showed Waterdam is heavily traveled, but a big portion of those drivers are going above the speed limit. Speeding is a concern everywhere, but especially for Waterdam due to the residential areas and windy nature of the road.

"You see a lot of signs on the road that say 'Drive Like Your Kid Lives Here,' and I think that's important," said Sgt. Dan O'Leary, North Strabane Township Police Department. "Roughly 90,000 vehicles one way in the month of June. A majority of those vehicles were traveling over the speed limit."

The efforts are being done by not only North Strabane, but also Peters Township and Pennsylvania State Police as well. 

Over the last two weeks, police say they successfully made 250 stops during the busiest times of travel. It's a 35 mph road, but in one case police were able to stop a driver going over double the limit of 85mph. That's exactly what police are targeting and want to stop.

"That was the fastest speed we recorded, which is just that speed is extremely dangerous," said Sgt. O'Leary.

Over the two-week period, state police provided numbers of what the department's combined efforts were able to do. They issued 196 warnings, 93 citations, and had three arrests.

While speed is the main thing, they also saw other violations.

"We noticed a lot with the Paul Miller Law that was enacted. A lot of distracted driving. People texting while driving or having their phones in hand while driving, so we tried to look for that," said Sgt. O'Leary.

Going forward, police are warning residents and drivers that they will be watching and enforcing the 35 mph speed limit aggressively.