By NICK GOSNELL
Hutch Post
Trooper Chad Crittenden with the Kansas Highway Patrol talked to Hutch Post about the special enforcement campaign that is going on now through Labor Day.
"Usually around the holiday weekends or major holidays, KDOT provides additional overtime for step funding," Trooper Crittenden said. "It's where we have a lot more troopers or officers all around the state, highly visible out there, but we are taking strict enforcement out there, just ensuring and trying to get that education out there. We try to do it through social media first and give the warnings that way, but again, we have to ensure that people are not impaired out on our roadways, not using their phones in ways they shouldn't be, and especially enforcing the speed and occupant protection violations."
Speed violations in particular have been a point of emphasis for the patrol on social media, as they have been showing a lot of tickets for going over 100 miles per hour in recent months.
"A lot of times what we fail to understand is our cars have limitations, us as humans and drivers have limitations, and just because that speedometer can go up to 100 plus miles an hour doesn't mean that we can react to it," Crittenden said. "You know, reaction time is drastically changing the faster you go. You can't respond, your vehicle won't respond the way you think it should at those speeds, and that's when we see these severe injuries and fatality crashes happen when the unexpected does."
For the latest information on construction and road conditions in Kansas, go to https://kandrive.gov/.