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More officers on the road should mean fewer wrecks

Greater visibility, checkpoints will work to reduce accidents

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Few things slow down a speeding driver better than the sight of a patrol car.

That's why beefed-up traffic enforcement announced by local authorities and advocated by the governor should have an impact on making our roads safer.

Grants from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration will allow departments in several municipalities and the Beaufort County Sheriff's Office to add officers specifically to patrol areas with the highest accident rates.

The state Department of Transportation awarded the Sheriff's Office $173,003 to step up traffic enforcement. The sheriff is pitching in $19,226 for a total of $192,226 to create the full-time traffic unit. The Beaufort County Multi-Agency Joint Enforcement Traffic Team -- made up of 12 officers from the Sheriff's Office, S.C. Highway Patrol, the Beaufort Police Department and the Yemassee Police Department -- will begin work Jan. 1.

Officers assigned to the unit will be dedicated solely to clamping down on traffic problems, specifically targeting areas where repeat collisions occur and often result in fatalities or serious injury.

Bluffton police Chief David McAllister said his department already has officers committed to the 14th Circuit Law Enforcement Network, which does about 32 hours of team traffic enforcement each month in Colleton, Hampton, Beaufort, Allendale and Jasper counties. The Bluffton department received a grant of about $72,000, which will allow it to commit another officer to the network.

For his part, Gov. Mark Sanford has included $77 million in his executive budget to bolster law enforcement, including the hiring of 100 additional Highway Patrol troopers. He said law enforcement suffered some of the biggest budget cuts following the 2001 recession.

Accident statistics show the need to improve traffic safety here and throughout the state. Beaufort County averaged 21 highway deaths over the past four years. According to state Public Safety Department statistics, Beaufort County ranked 11th out of the state's 46 counties in the number of highway collisions in 2004, with 3,165.

An NHTSA study of South Carolina traffic deaths between 1983 and 2002 found that the Palmetto State had the highest rate of speed-related deaths in the nation. Speed, the NHTSA said, was directly related to 50 percent of the state's 19,211 traffic fatalities during those 19 years. That is 18 percentage points higher than the national rate of 32 percent.

Sheriff P.J. Tanner's goal is to reduce traffic-related fatalities by at least 20 percent. By working to reduce fatalities, officers also should have an impact on the total number of accidents.

Enforcement and education might help reduce fatalities, but a good dose of common sense also should come into play. It shouldn't take the threat of an expensive ticket to lower a driver's speed and thus the chance of death on the highway.