Rise in drivers behaving badly across metro Tucson grabs police attention

Law enforcement agencies across the Tucson metro area say they are ratcheting up traffic enforcement efforts to curb an ongoing rise in bad behavior behind the wheel, like distracted driving and speeding.

The number of civil traffic charges at Tucson City Court has been going up in the past two years. There were 30,523 in 2022 and 34,251 in 2023, in comparison to the 25,792 in 2021.

So far in 2024, City Court has handled 15,855 civil traffic charges, records dating to June show.

Bad driving became such a problem in Pima County that in January this year Sheriff Chris Nanos announced the formation of a new team that’s dedicated to drivers’ bad behavior.

“We’re serious about distracted driving,” said Nanos. “(When) you’re driving a car at even the slowest speed limits at 35 miles an hour, it’s going to happen at a moment’s notice.”

The traffic team includes six officers and one sergeant, which supplements the department’s existing traffic unit and DUI squad. Its strategy is to target the county’s 10 largest and busiest intersections with focused enforcement.

“There’s a little bit of art and science (to it),” said Gerard Moretz, the department’s bureau chief overseeing traffic. “We look at crash data and we look at our busy intersections, but there’s also a sense of having a feel for traffic patterns. So, it’s not regimented.”

The idea is for the team, which moves around as a group, to be flexible, spontaneous and responsive to what’s happening on the roads.

A strategic planning and implementation team was developed in 2024 to add to existing traffic safety resources at the Tucson Police Department, which includes 18 motor officers, nine officers in the DUI unit and traffic detectives.

TPD will also be implementing new positions and resources to further traffic safety – two DUI officers out of which one will be a daytime DUI officer, an added supervisor, a detective, and two investigator positions who focus on administrative paperwork in the traffic investigative unit.

While the Marana Police Department doesn’t have a specialized traffic unit, it has motor officers who handle traffic issues, said Metz. This unit, in addition to traffic safety enforcement and responding to traffic complaints, closely works with traffic engineers to coordinate any changes in traffic lights, intersections and signage, Metz said.

The OVPD’s traffic unit is down currently due to recent retirements and promotions, but Wright said they were looking to refill those positions.

The department recently received grants from the Arizona Governor’s Office of Highway Safety it’ll use to fund traffic enforcement, according to a news release from the department.

“Speed, impaired and distracted driving are dangerous, and these funds will go towards reducing injuries and fatalities caused by these dangerous drivers,” said OVPD Chief Kara Riley in the release.

The Selective Traffic Enforcement Program (STEP), which made over 586 traffic stops in its focus on speeding, aggressive driving, red light running and other risky behavior will use a $50,832 grant to help purchase new handheld speed measuring devices and to cover overtime for extra patrols in high collision areas, the release said describing some of the ways the funds would be used.

The department has an assigned 10-person traffic unit along with a sergeant and a traffic investigation detective who focuses on major crashes, as well as two officers dedicated DUI enforcement.

Technology can take eyes off the road

Lt. Lauren Pettey, who oversees motor officers and the DUI squad for the Tucson Police Department, said there are a lot of things that fall under the umbrella of districted driving, including a vehicle’s technology.

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“There’s a lot of technology (in cars) that can be enhancing safety features, but at the same time, more people potentially could be distracted,” she said. “On top of that, you also have the cellphone and a lot of times we observe as people are texting and driving.”

Darren Wright, a spokesman for the Oro Valley Police Department, echoed Pettey’s emphasis on the influence of technology and cellphone usage on driving behaviors today, saying they contribute to crashes considerably. Despite the technologically advanced vehicles on the roads, the enhanced safety features are both “a blessing and a curse,” Wright said.

“We’ve been able to develop side warnings, automatic braking, self-driving and partial self-driving cars, and lane assist — all these things are great except for the fact that people start relying on them,” said Wright.

“(People) feel like they can pay more attention to their phone because the car is going to bail them out. But ultimately, people need to take responsibility that they are driving, and that’s a heavy responsibility,” he said.

The pandemic effect

The effects of the pandemic inevitably come into discussions on traffic safety, which reduced the number of crashes and fatalities in 2020 and its adjacent years.

Law enforcement officials highlight a rise in speeding since the pandemic took many cars off the road.

“The pandemic reduced traffic (and) with all that open road, people got in the habit of driving faster because there was more room,” said Wright, of Oro Valley police.“When the pandemic ended and traffic started picking back up, people didn’t change their behaviors back. And now we have higher speeds, more congestion, and so, that just lends to a recipe for more collisions.”

Sheriff Nanos recounted the start of 2021 when the pandemic had just opened across the U.S. and people were getting back out on the roads. He said he saw some pretty “outrageous driving behavior.”

“People (were) driving at speeds that were way above the norm,” he said. “I got speeders, red light runners, (and) all of these people on their cellphones all the time.”

Fatal crashes

Pettey, of Tucson police, said speed was a factor in approximately 44% of traffic fatalities in the last year. It was a factor in 42 of the 95 traffic fatalities recorded.

TPD reported 40 traffic fatalities as of May 15, five more deaths than the same period last year.

Officials at police agencies in the region also cited speed in several fatal wrecks.

In Pima County, 51 people were killed in a total of 2,021 crashes handled by the Pima County Sheriff’s Department in 2019. In 2020 57 people were killed in 2,442 crashes, and 61 people were killed in 3,109 crashes, the sheriff’s department said.

“Intersections are always dangerous. A lot of that is due to distracted driving and people not adhering to the traffic lights, (pushing) that yellow light a little bit too far,” said Oro Valley’s Wright, Nearly 85% of crashes in intersections take place within the first two seconds of the light change, he said.

Oro Valley had three traffic fatalities in 2023 out of a total of 566 collisions, Wright said. There have been no fatal wrecks in Oro Valley so far this year.

Marana recorded 950 traffic collisions in 2023, including two that were fatal. There were four fatalities in 2022 in 724 total traffic collisions, records show.