DC police cracking down on drivers with traffic safety violations

WASHINGTON - D.C. police say they’re cracking down on traffic safety violations — especially drivers running up thousands of dollars in unpaid photo enforcement speeding tickets.  

It’s all part of the city's "Vision Zero" plan to cut down on traffic fatalities, serious injury accidents or any kind of criminal behavior that makes our roadways less safe.

Big picture view:

MPD Sgt. Terry Thorne is the head of the department's traffic enforcement unit and part of its "Step Out" program — one of several ways D.C. police and the city's Department of Public Works are teaming up to go after the worst traffic violators out there.

"If you have $100,000 worth of photo enforcement tickets, we obviously need to re-educate you on the importance of traffic safety," Thorne said.

Not only are they going after drivers with outstanding fines, those who don't yield to the crosswalk, are seen on their phone, not wearing a seatbelt or driving while impaired or distracted will be pulled over and cited.  

One driver with a large amount of unpaid photo enforcement speeding tickets had their car impounded. Another driver allegedly caught driving without a valid license was cuffed and taken into custody.

What they're saying:

"So D.C. law says when a pedestrian takes control of a crosswalk that the vehicle needs to yield to them. In other words, cars need to stop while pedestrians are crossing the road," Sgt. Thorne said. "That's very important and we have a lot of pedestrian population here and that we all need to get together and make our roadways as safe as possible for everyone." 

Thorne says efforts like this have had encouraging results: More than 600 cars with at least $3,000 in outstanding fines impounded so far this year.

MPD says there have been just three traffic fatalities in D.C. this year compared to 16 at this point last year.