as NBC 5 investigates As the series “Driven to Death” continued, many viewers asked: “Where are the police?” And why don't Dallas police officers write more tickets?
We visited one of those viewers, Gail Baker, who lives on Ferguson Road in east Dallas. Baker said he feels like he lives on the edge of a freeway.
As our series “Driven To Death” continues, many are asking, where are the police? I heard from viewers that they rarely see Dallas police writing tickets. New records have raised further questions about enforcement on some of the city's most dangerous roads.
“It's so loud it might wake you up,” Baker said.
Baker said she also fears walking in the neighborhood because the sidewalks along the street are narrow.
Bryan Adams High School is also in Baker's neighborhood, on Milmar Drive just outside of Ferguson. NBC 5 investigates Students leave school, cross six lanes of fast-flowing cars in a mid-block in the Ferguson neighborhood, stopping only to wait for oncoming traffic in a narrow median, then dashing down the rest of the sidewalk. I saw it cross.
Texas Department of Transportation data shows 13 people were killed and 45 seriously injured in crashes on Ferguson Road over a five-year period. Almost half of the casualties were speed-related.
One of them was 73-year-old Linda Pearson, who was killed two years ago when she was struck by a street racer while walking her dog along Ferguson Road.
Because of accidents like the one that killed Pearson, Baker hopes police will write more tickets on Ferguson Road.
“We'll have to look at that, yes,” Baker said. “Let’s stop people dying here so often.”
This is a common request we hear from our viewers as comments on recent reports on social media. One said it was free for everyone and there were few police patrolling the streets. Another official said people were driving like crazy because they knew they would not be punished.
NBC 5 investigates He took those concerns directly to Dallas Police Chief Eddie Garcia, who agreed that the city has a speed problem.
“We need more visibility. We're going too fast,” Garcia said. “There's probably not a day that goes by when I'm driving a car that I don't see someone operating a car in a terrible way.”
Garcia said he imagined most people who drive in Dallas would have a similar experience. But despite these concerns, data we obtained from the Dallas Police Department shows that the number of speeding tickets written has declined over the two most recent years for which we have complete data.
Back in 2020, Dallas Police Department officers wrote more than 48,000 speeding tickets. This number decreased by nearly 50% in 2021 and recovered slightly in 2022, but is still down 25% compared to 2020.
Garcia said the department is limited in what it can do about speeders due to staffing shortages and a focus on reducing violent crime, and agreed there is not a consistent level of enforcement.
“Of course not. We want to get more attention,” Garcia said.
The chief added that his traffic unit has a lot of ground to cover beyond city streets. In Dallas, the Dallas County Sheriff's Department does not perform all highway enforcement. As such, city police patrol highways such as Interstate 635/LBJ Freeway and US 75/Central Freeway.
Garcia said he was stunned to learn his department would be patrolling the highway. He moved here from California, where the state highway patrol monitors many urban highways.
“I was a little shocked, there's no question about that,” Garcia recalled. “I was a little shocked.”
Along 75/Central, data suggests speed enforcement is inconsistent. From 2019 to 2021, the number of tickets decreased by almost 70%, with only 560 tickets created for him in 2021. This averages out to less than two tickets per day.
While the number of tickets written to Central did increase in 2022, it was still down 30% overall compared to 2019.
Dallas' Vision Zero action plan to reduce traffic fatalities states that the Dallas Police Department will “intensify enforcement of the most dangerous driving behaviors” and “provide a consistent level of enforcement across all DPD departments whenever possible.” It is said that it is supposed to happen.
But is it possible?
“Well, that was the beauty of ‘as much as possible,’ because we’re doing the best we can at this point,” Garcia said. “We certainly support Vision Zero. It's very important and we're doing everything we can.”
The department appeared to be on track to issue the most tickets since 2020 as enforcement increased in the first six months of this year, according to the department's ticket data. But if you take a closer look at some of the city's busiest streets, records still show sporadic enforcement.
One of them is along Buckner Boulevard, where nearby residents and business owners said. NBC 5 investigates, You rarely see police writing tickets.
“What I'm really saying is there's no enforcement. I just don't see it,” Bobby Peterson said.
At Buckner, data shows the number of tickets written has fallen by 66% over the past two years, with the number dropping even further in the first half of 2023.
Back on Ferguson Road, tickets more than doubled to more than 1,700 in the year following the death of a pedestrian walking his dog, according to Dallas police records. However, only 257 tickets were written in the first half of 2023.
“Oh yeah, they just disappeared from the area,” Baker said. “If only they could come out and make their presence felt!”
Garcia said he believes officers have written more warnings to drivers and that the warnings are not reflected in ticket data obtained by police. NBC 5 investigates. We requested that data from the department, but it was not provided in a format that we could analyze.
Garcia said he hopes that as the department's staffing levels improve, more officers will be able to be assigned to expedite enforcement. According to statistics provided by DPD, approximately 150 positions are currently vacant.
The station reported NBC5 investigates 75/Central and has issued more than 1,600 citations since 2022 in Vision Zero focus areas, including parts of Buckner Boulevard and Ferguson Road.
No one is saying the department shouldn't focus on violent crime first, but the data shows that more people died in traffic accidents in 2022 than homicides (228 vs. 214). . This highlights how serious both problems are becoming. Many lives are too short.
