MESA, AZ — Mesa police is cracking down on dangerous driving as they search for speeders, distracted drivers, and others who break the law.
ABC15 joined Mesa police Lieutenant Jason Coon for the safety campaign.
Coon oversees the department's traffic unit.
"Our focus is both enforcement efforts and vehicular crime. We are the ones to go out to investigate the fatal accidents,” said Lt. Coon.
Coon along with 28 officers, patrol every corner of the East Valley city every day.
He welcomed ABC15 along Friday to give an update on an initiative his officers are doing called Operation Safer Streets.
"What we found is we are having a lot of pedestrian accidents on the western side of the city based on the higher population with individuals walking,” added Lt. Coon.
The two-month crackdown, Lt. Coon says, is a direct response to the more than 40 deadly crashes his unit worked on last year.
By the end of last year, Coon calculated 1,000 crashes with injuries across Mesa.
So far, in 2023, Lt. Coon has counted 14 fatal crashes city-wide resulting in the deaths of 16 people.
One area of focus is the intersection of Higley Road and Southern Avenue.
Police say this is one of the intersections with the most crashes. Along Higley Road between U.S. 60 and Main Street, officers say they know they can find speeders, distracted drivers, and those who use lanes improperly.
"So, because of that problem we want to get out in front of it because we found, based on our analysis, both March and April are high months,” added Lt. Coon.
He says along that three to four-mile stretch police cite one in three drivers for something.
During the first hour of riding with an officer, ABC15 saw another officer on a motorcycle cite six different people for speeding.
And, as ABC15 began to end the ride, Lt. Coon stopped someone making a U-turn.
"The gentleman just overshot the driveway into his residence and simply turned around because he thought it was okay to do at that time,” added Lt. Coon.
After doing the enhanced patrols, two days a week since March 6, the traffic unit has so far issued 338 citations and warnings.
Lt. Coon says nearly a third of the citations and warnings were written for speeding. He says eight were written for DUIs.
