I know you always drive safely on Aurora Avenue. You always stay focused, drive calmly, don’t chat on your cell phone while driving and certainly avoid drinking and driving. We’re on the same page with all of that. I just want to make sure you know to REALLY do all of those things (or not do those things, as the case may be) on Thursday.
The Aurora Traffic Safety Project will be performing a “safe driving enforcement patrol” on Aurora Avenue North all day.
On April 14th beginning at 6:30 am and running all day and evening, the Seattle Police Department, Washington State Patrol and Washington Liquor Control Board will be conducting a major traffic enforcement patrol to deter aggressive and distracted driving on Aurora. Specifically the patrol will focus on the behaviors we know are contributing to collisions, injuries and deaths along Aurora such as speeding, following too close, unsafe turns, DUI, cell phone usage and other in car distractions.
More than 50 Seattle Police Department personnel will be participating including motorcycle and squad car units, the aggressive drivers response team and the DUI squad. Joining SPD will be six patrol units from the Washington State Patrol and three teams from the Washington Liquor Control Board. A unified command center will be established at 125th and Aurora.
The April 14th patrol is part of the Aurora Traffic Safety Project – a two year effort to improve safety through engineering improvements, increased enforcement, and educational outreach. Between April 2005 and March 2008, 1,581 collisions occurred on Aurora between the Battery Street Tunnel and N 145th Street – that’s nearly 46 collisions per month. Since the start of this project in 2009, collisions on Aurora have been reduced by more than 20 percent.
For more information about the Aurora Traffic Safety Project visit www.seattle.gov/aurora.