There has been a steep drop in the number of speeding tickets issued by Hollister police in the past two years, while more drivers are cited for stop-sign violations than any other traffic infraction, according to data provided by the department.
Hollister police issued 81 citations for speeding violations during the 2013-14 fiscal year completed at the end of June, according to numbers requested by the Free Lance in an analysis of traffic violations issued locally.
In the most recent calendar year, 2013, police gave out 76 speeding tickets, as listed on the city website in a general summary of traffic violations over the past five years. In 2012, meanwhile, the city issued just 43 speeding tickets.
Those numbers represent a general decline from the prior three years. In 2011, police issued 259 speeding citations. In 2010, police issued 129. And in 2009, officers gave out 180 speeding tickets, according to city data.
“I don’t have a good reason for that,” Hollister Police Chief David Westrick acknowledged regarding the slide in speeding enforcement.
Westrick said traffic enforcement is generally a proactive measure and pointed to low staffing – with 23 sworn officers and two to three openings, he said – as a possible explanation.
“When you don’t have enough folks out there to do proactive stuff, that’s going to be down a little,” he said of traffic enforcement.
Trends with speeding citations were among the telling numbers included in the documents released by the Hollister Police Department, San Benito County Sheriff’s Office and California Highway Patrol in response to the Free Lance records request.
Those figures showed that most commonly issued traffic citation issued in Hollister is for running a stop sign, with 297 tickets in 2013-14, or 22 percent of all traffic citations issued, according to Hollister police. The second most common citation from Hollister police is for cell phone use, with 215 tickets in the fiscal year. Next on the list was speeding at 81 citations, according to the city numbers.
As for the sheriff’s office, stop-sign violations also topped the list, with 106 issued in the most recent fiscal year. Sheriff’s deputies issued just 44 speeding tickets in the same period, according to figures provided by the agency. Deputies issued a lot fewer cell-phone tickets than Hollister police, with 35 handed out by the sheriff’s office.
“I think for us, there’s probably quite an emphasis on traffic stops because we only have a couple people out at any given time,” said Capt. Eric Taylor with the sheriff’s office, adding that traffic enforcement is a particular priority for San Juan Bautista, which contracts for services.
On local highways, the CHP handles traffic enforcement and reported much more robust enforcement numbers than police or the sheriff’s office. In total, the CHP reported issuing citations on 3,450 violations, compared with 1,310 for Hollister police and 527 for the sheriff’s office, according to the records.
Other than comparing jurisdictions or using year-over-year evaluations, however, there is no way to give the levels of local traffic enforcement a quantitative context. There are no statewide totals for traffic violations, in fact, because the state does not maintain a central database.
“The problem with this is, it’s different law enforcement agencies issuing the citations in different jurisdictions,” said Jessica Gonzalez, spokeswoman for the California Department of Motor Vehicles. “As far as I know, there isn’t.”
Westrick said historically, he has looked at what other communities are doing throughout the country when looking for examples on how to improve strategies. He said residents should expect to see a more “deliberate” approach to curb speeding.
“I think what you’re going to see probably now into the future is sort of this deliberate, really deliberate sort of philosophy that we need to curb speeding,” Westrick said.
The chief said speeding is a major problem near schools in Hollister, while some groups even street race at times. He also has noticed a lot of distracted drivers in town – one reason why the department has conducted sting operations focusing on distracted drivers, particularly those using cell phones.
“It’s the new drunk driving,” he said about talking while driving.
He said the department plans to continue pursuing grants to help in the traffic enforcement arena.
“We’re trying to get back to a point where we actually have traffic enforcement,” Westrick said, noting that contracts with school resource officers do call for traffic enforcement as part of those deals.
Enforcement aside, he doesn’t necessarily think local drivers are worse than those in other places.
“I’ve worked kind of all over California,” he said. “They’re really no different anywhere. Here, we’re note quite as in a hurry as most places but we still have speeding violations here.”
Taylor, relatively new to the area while three months on the job, maintained a similar sentiment about local driving habits.
“I do think on these county roads, we do have issues with people speeding, unsafely taking over other vehicles and maneuvering around them,” he said.
MOST CITATIONS (Fiscal 2013-14)
Cited by HPD
Stop sign violations: 297
Cell phone use: 215
Speeding: 81
Seat belt: 72
Drivers license: 54
Registration: 48
Suspended license: 31
Red light: 29
Petty theft: 22
Other: 461
Total: 1,310
Source: City records request
SPEEDING TICKETS
Cited by HPD
2009: 180
2010: 129
2011: 259
2012: 43
2013: 76
Fiscal 2013-14: 81
Source: City website
DUI OFFENSES
Cited by HPD
2013: 156
2012: 118
2011: 145
2010: 176
2009: 317
