ST. LOUIS 鈥 Ryan Lilly, like a lot of St. 亚洲无码 drivers these days, looks both ways 鈥 even when he has the green light.
鈥淭hat鈥檚 just my standard protocol in the city,鈥 he said last week, days after a man was killed near his home in a car accident at the intersection of Bates Street and Morganford Road.
It was one of a recent spate of high-profile traffic accidents that have angered residents fed up with watching drivers run red lights and speed with seeming impunity.
St. 亚洲无码 traffic fatalities peaked at 81 in 2020, the height of the pandemic. There were 78 last year, the second-highest fatal crash total recorded in 20 years and well above pre-pandemic levels. Six people have died in car wrecks on city streets in just the last two weeks.
People are also reading…
In response to growing concerns about traffic safety, Mayor Tishaura O. Jones and aldermen recently approved $40 million to build traffic-calming infrastructure, a push city leaders began after pedestrians were killed near the busy South Grand Boulevard commercial district six months ago.
Though better engineering can slow down drivers, some say that needs to be paired with stronger traffic enforcement to get reckless drivers off the streets or at least make them more cautious.
鈥淚 am certainly very conscious of my speed now,鈥 said Alderman Joe Vaccaro, who chairs the city鈥檚 public safety committee and made headlines when he was issued a speeding ticket last year. 鈥淚t works. It worked on me.鈥
The St. 亚洲无码 Police Department nearly 18 months ago announced a renewed focus on traffic violations, but the strategy shift came after a decade of falling traffic stops and citations, according to data reported to the state.
In 2021, St. 亚洲无码 police made 45,154 traffic stops, a little more than half the 85,622 of stops they conducted in 2009, according to data reported to the Missouri Attorney General鈥檚 Office for its annual report on racial profiling in traffic stops. St. 亚洲无码 police issued just fewer than 18,000 tickets in 2021, about half of the 34,833 they issued in 2009. Arrests from traffic stops were 1,348 in 2021, compared with 3,351 in 2009.
In 2009, there were 39 traffic deaths on city streets, half as many as 2021.
Some of the drops in traffic stops appear to correspond to major social unrest and protests against police in the region: 2014, when the region was engulfed in the Ferguson unrest; in 2017, when similar protests followed the acquittal of Jason Stockley; and in 2020, when police backed off in-person enforcement during the pandemic.
A St. 亚洲无码 police spokeswoman acknowledged that the department鈥檚 officers were 鈥渟tretched鈥 due to civil unrest in those years. But she said there were also other factors at play.
In 2018, under former Chief John Hayden 鈥渙ur patrol measures shifted to a focus on violent crime鈥 in areas where it was highest, an enforcement focus that became known as 鈥淗ayden鈥檚 Rectangle,鈥 police spokeswoman Evita Caldwell said in an email.
The drop in arrests, at least, mirrors trends in large cities across the country, said Richard Rosenfeld, a professor of criminology at the University of Missouri-St. 亚洲无码. Indeed, traffic stops and citations and arrests from those stops also showed major declines in Kansas City, falling by more than half since 2014, according to state data.
Cities across the country pivoted to a focus on violent crime over a decade ago, Rosenfeld said, which helped drive an ensuing drop in arrests for lower-level crimes. Now, the public is clamoring to enforce those lower-level crimes.
鈥淎s a general rule, the public rightly wants to see laws on the books enforced, because if they鈥檙e not enforced, that generates the perception that you can commit crime with impunity,鈥 Rosenfeld said. 鈥淪peeding and running red lights are currently viewed by the public as a serious offense, especially in a place like St. 亚洲无码 where we鈥檝e seen an uptick in traffic fatalities and crashes.鈥
Whether the police have the staffing to step up enforcement on top of their other duties remains an open question. The department said it focuses its traffic enforcement on locations with the most crashes but noted that its staffing has fallen in recent years.
As of June, there were 758 police officers and another 87 open police officer positions, according to budget documents. That鈥檚 down more than 150 from July 2011, when the city had 920 police officers, according to budget documents.
The Missouri Highway Patrol hasn鈥檛 been much help in enforcing speeding on interstates within the city limits. Last year, state troopers issued just 35 speeding tickets in the city, down from 432 in 2021. In 2015, the highway patrol issued just one ticket in the city.
They did, however, issue more than 1,000 in 2017 after a high-profile push from then-Gov. Eric Greitens, though Circuit Attorney Kimberly M. Gardner鈥檚 office said at the time it couldn鈥檛 handle the increase in citations, and the number of state-issued tickets began falling in the following years. The state says it was never staffed to patrol in the city anyway, though it patrols highways everywhere else, including St. 亚洲无码 County.
鈥淭he City of St. 亚洲无码 has historically patrolled interstates within its jurisdiction and did not seek Missouri State Highway Patrol assistance,鈥 said spokesman Capt. John Hotz. 鈥淭he Patrol鈥檚 state-authorized staffing levels and resources have been based on this arrangement.鈥
On some highways, at least, city patrol cars have become more visible in recent months and have pulled over motorists during rush hour. It鈥檚 unclear how St. 亚洲无码 police Chief Robert Tracy will prioritize traffic enforcement in a city that has recorded at least 200 homicides a year in the past three years.
Alderman Michael Gras, 28th Ward, said Chief Tracy at least appears to recognize the issue.
鈥淗e understands, it seems like, that we鈥檙e not seemingly doing traffic enforcement very much,鈥 Gras said of the chief during a candidate forum last week. 鈥淗e told me a story that he was standing on a corner with a few other officers and some car just blew through a red light, and he looked around and said, 鈥榊ou guys aren鈥檛 doing anything? What鈥檚 going on here?鈥 I think that鈥檚 all very encouraging.鈥
But more drivers are opting to flee rather than pull over, and departments around the region have faced blowback when pursuits lead to crashes. Rep. Justin Sparks, R-Wildwood, recently introduced a bill increasing penalties for fleeing from police stops.
And Rosenfeld, the criminologist, notes that it鈥檚 too soon to say just how much the drop in traffic stops and citations has contributed to the recent spike in dangerous crashes.
鈥淚 think it makes a great deal of sense to assume enforcement does matter,鈥 Rosenfeld said. 鈥淏ut how much as opposed to other influences? We just don鈥檛 know.鈥