A few months ago, the city of Dallas dropped the speed limit of a portion of Central Expressway from 70 to 65 in order to curb the amount of speeding and hopefully prevent more accidents in the area.
It will be determined if the change has the desired effect, but data from NBC DFW that Dallas sheriffs have been issuing fewer speeding tickets in the area than recent history shows.
According to NBC 5 Investigates, there's been a 65% decline in speeding tickets issued by Dallas sheriffs over the last five years!
Records show that in 2019, the Dallas County Sheriff's Department issued over 5,600 speeding tickets and 200 warnings. In 2023, the deputies issued only about 1,900 tickets with warnings down to 150.
Dallas County Sheriff Marian Brown explains that officers made fewer stops during the pandemic, and those numbers haven't really gone up since. She also said that because deputies assigned to patrol the county's freeways have to respond to calls in parts of the county where they provide police services, that leaves less time for deputies to enforce speeds on the highways.
"We're out there, but we're having to measure out what we have in terms of resources and do what we can do with what we have," she said.
Chris Dyer, president of the Dallas County Sheriff's Association, added that staffing changes and overtime limits also contributed to the lack of speeding tickets issued.
"We're reducing overtime. We're reducing comp time," he said. "I've had to take one of my deputies and send him home for two weeks because his comp time level is too high and I can't hire anybody to replace him, which means I've got basically one less person on the street every single day."
LISTEN on the Audacy App
Sign Up and Follow 100.3 JACK-FM
Facebook | Twitter | Instagram
