City of Arlington Once Again Recognized for Traffic Safety Initiatives

By Susan Schrock, Office of Communication

Posted on May 07, 2021, May 07, 2021

The City of Arlington once again received a Traffic Safety Initiatives Award for its efforts to make its employees, residents and visitors safer when traveling through The American Dream City.

Arlington was among 17 cities across the state recently recognized by the Texas Municipal Courts Education Center and the Texas Department of Transportation. The 2021 traffic safety award recognizes the City’s robust programs that focus on eliminating all fatal car crashes within the city, reducing property damage, and protecting the safety of citizens, employees and assets of the City. This is the 9th year that the Arlington Municipal Court has won this award.

“Even in the midst of a pandemic, and community-wide closures, the City worked hard to make the roadways safer not only for our employees but our citizens as well. Clearly, traffic safety is a job the City of Arlington takes seriously every year,” Associate Municipal Judge Teresa Evans said.

Below are a just few highlights of the many initiatives from 2020 that illustrate Arlington's continued commitment to promoting traffic safety.

Impaired Driving Education: Before school closures and campus restrictions that began in March because of the coronavirus pandemic, more than 1,500 teens participated in 54 DWI presentations.

Impaired Driving Enforcement: The Arlington Police Department launched a focused DWI enforcement directive with officers from the DWI Unit, the Traffic Section and each of the four patrol districts to reduce DWI-related crashes by 10%.

Operation SAFE and the Road Rage Hotline: As part of the Operation – Strategy Against Fatality Events (SAFE), officers watch for hazardous and aggressive driving behaviors that can lead to road rage incidents and vehicle crashes on the City’s highway network and five major arterial roadways. In 2020, SAFE conducted 1,149 team and/or Saturation Enforcement details that resulted in 19,148 traffic stops, 344 arrests and 17,819 Class C misdemeanor citations being issued. Additionally, 193 calls were made to the Road Rage Hotline in 2020. Officers assigned to investigate the hotline calls mailed warning letters to 147 registered owners of suspect vehicles.

 Commercial Vehicle Enforcement: The Arlington Police Department’s Commercial Vehicle Enforcement Unit increased its number of inspections by about 18% from the previous year.

 Safety Seat Inspections: The Arlington Police Department continues to partner with SafeKids of Tarrant County. Officers who are trained Child Passenger Safety Technicians are sent to fire stations throughout the community to conduce inspections to ensure parents have correctly installed a child safety seat and that the seat is functioning properly. This program also provides free safety seats to those who do not have the financial ability to purchase the seats as needed.