Overly Cautious Drivers

While recuperating at home and reading the newspaper this morning, I read an interesting letter to the editor in today's  issue of The Ledger. The letter described a situation at an intersection earlier this month where drivers were treating a flashing yellow light as if they were required to stop. The author of the letter was accurate in stating that flashing yellow means to approach with caution but keep moving, while a traffic signal that is completely out is to be treated as a four-way stop. We appreciate the author bringing this matter to the public's attention.

The letter also seemed to suggest that LPD should have dispatched a unit to the intersection to reduce the back up from drivers who were stopping rather than driving through as they should. I can tell you that we generally do not dispatch a unit to monitor an intersection where the signal is working and traffic is flowly safely (albeit in a slightly different mode in this situation).

To dispatch a unit to this location is a waste of precious resources in our opinion. We simply do not have enough patrol units (officers or aides can handle this type of call) to send them to this situation. I would much rather keep an officer at an intersection to continue traffic enforcement efforts, things like ticketing red-light runners, as opposed to monitoring a location where traffic is moving safely.

We will dispatch units to locations where the situation warrants police intervention in order to correct unsafe conditions. However, we want everyone to understand that you probably won't see an officer at an intersection where the lights are flashing yellow.

- Asst Chief Bill LePere