Petaluma Police Department Receives State Award For Excellence in Traffic Safety

California's law enforcement community must set ambitious goals for traffic safety enforcement and education.

Police officers have unprecedented opportunities to prevent a traffic fatality from occurring at the rate of one every two hours, to reduce the number of serious injuries resulting from traffic collisions, and to positively impact the spiraling emergency services and health care costs.

The California Law Enforcement Challenge (CLEC) program allows law enforcement agencies to set comprehensive goals, to strive to reach new heights in traffic safety, to share their experiences with others, and to be recognized for their traffic safety accomplishments; in short, to make a difference in the communities their officers serve each day.

This competition has no losers - only winners: for saving lives and reducing the frequency and severity of injuries are the true rewards of law enforcement's efforts.

This week, representatives from the California Law Enforcement Challenge notified Petaluma PD that we received recognition for our traffic safety efforts in calendar year 2012.

Petaluma PD received a 1st Place Award, beating out Folsom PD in their agency category.

The agency category is determined by the number of sworn personnel in the agency. Petaluma PD highlights:

There have been no Fatal Alcohol-involved collisions in Petaluma in 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012.

PPD conducted 13 Sobriety Checkpoints in 2012, with 10,475 vehicles passing through the checkpoints.

PPD conducted 99 DUI Saturation Patrols resulting in 45 DUI arrests and 24 arrests for other violations.

PPD officers conducted 40 DUI Warrant Sweeps resulting in 80 arrests.

PPD officers conducted 76 Probation and Parole compliance checks on known DUI offenders.

We identified 110 habitual DUI offenders who were targeted for stakeouts and compliance checks.

PPD officers conducted 4 undercover court stings resulting in 14 arrests for DUI offenders who were unlicensed.

DUI arrests have decreased from a high of 608 in 2009 to 295 in 2012.
In 2012, officers issued 2245 speeding citations. Speeding remains the #1 cause of collisions in Petaluma.

Collisions have slightly increased from 694 in 2011 to 715 in 2012, but are far less then the 1302 in 1990.

In 2012, officers issued 739 citations for distracted driving, typically drivers were using their cell phone.

Seatbelt compliance rates in 2012 have remained at 98% over the past 3 years.

In 2012, traffic officers continued to focus on reducing bicycle, pedestrian, motorcycle and commercial truck collisions.

Info: Petaluma Police Department