Published on Sunday, March 12, 2006
in the Lake City Reporter

Safe Ride program leads to citations

The Florida Highway Patrol issued 100 speed citations in Columbia County during its sixth phase of Operation Safe Ride, a 48-hour campaign that took place on March 2-3.

During the statewide campaign, troopers from the Florida Highway Patrol issued 144 total citations, including 100 speed citations, 26 warnings, 10 misdemeanor citations and nine faulty equipment notices.

During the two-day campaign, the troopers traveled more than 3,500 miles on patrol in the county.

Statewide, the Florida Highway Patrol issued 7,748 total citations and 3,838 speeding citations.

FHP launched its first phase of Operation Safe Ride in February 2004. The campaign was designed to curb over-aggressive drivers and incidents of road rage on Florida's roadways.

“This operation is a perpetual operation in which troopers will utilize throughout the year to focus on dangerous trends that they observe causing serious injury or fatality crashes,” said Lt. Mike Burroughs, public information officer for Troop B of the Florida Highway Patrol. “Troopers will also use this operation to focus heavily on speed and distracted driving during the upcoming spring break period. Rest assured that troopers are waging war against aggressive driving and speed violations.”

Columbia County has seen six traffic-related fatalities through March 8 of this year, compared to only three for the same time period last year.

“It's apparent that operations such as this are necessary to educate motorists about the dangers involved with careless driving,” Burroughs said. “We are already behind the eight-ball in 2006 as we have doubled the amount of fatalities when compared to the same period in 2005.”