Arkansas troopers to bolster enforcement of speeding this weekend

Arkansas is one of five states where law enforcement will target speeding violations this weekend.

The stepped-up enforcement will start Friday and will continue through Sunday.

“Obey the Sign or Pay the Fine” is a multijurisdictional enforcement operation designed to make highway travel safer across Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri, Iowa and Nebraska.

“Speeding translates into death on our roadways. It greatly reduces a driver’s ability to steer safely around another vehicle, a hazardous object in the roadway or an unexpected curve,” said Susan DeCourcy, regional administrator, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Region 7.

According to the latest data from NHTSA, speeding was a contributing factor in 27 percent of all fatal crashes in the U.S. during 2015. More than 9,500 lives were lost in these speed-related crashes. In Arkansas during the same reporting period, there were 531 total traffic fatalities, of which 90 (17 percent) were speed related.

Federal highway safety experts consider a motor vehicle crash to be speed related if the driver is charged with exceeding the posted speed limit or was driving too fast for conditions at the time.

A crash on a road with a limit of 65 mph or greater is more than twice as likely to result in a fatality as on a road with a 45- or 50-mph speed limit. However, the danger of speeding is not limited to highways. Seventeen percent of speed-related traffic fatalities during 2015 occurred on local roads where the posted speed limits were 55 miles per hour or less.

“During the ‘Obey the Sign or Pay the Fine’ operation, state troopers will intensify their speed enforcement patrols,” said Colonel Bill Bryant, Arkansas State Police director and Governors Highway Safety representative. “We’ll stop and ticket anyone caught speeding.”

For more information, visit http://trafficsafetymarketing.gov/