By Elisabeth Strillacci

KANNAPOLIS — Anyone who has been through driver’s education knows that speed kills, and why speed limits are important and why they change depending on location and road designs.

But we forget. We start driving, living life, and we begin to be in a hurry, for whatever reason, and we forget the science behind the speed limits.

In the Citizen Police Academy this week, we got some heavy reminders from two sergeants about why it is so important to follow the posted speed.

According to the instructors this week, the first traffic law in America wasn’t designed for cars. It was passed on June 12, 1652, in what is ow New York, and it prohibited the riding of horses at a gallop, or driving a horse-drawn vehicle at galloping speed within city limits. Today, that translates into the standard 35 mph speed limit inside cities, unless otherwise posted, and 20 mph limits in most downtown areas which are more congested.

Those averages are a far cry from the first car speed limits. Hartford, Connecticut, my old stomping grounds for many years, was the first in the U.S. to enact a speed limit for automobiles. In 1901, that state enacted limits to 12 mph in the country and 8 mph within the city limits. We would barely get off the mark at those speeds today.

Unfortunately, speed limits, which are legal regulations drivers are expected to follow, have always come up against car manufacturers, who advertise the wonderful maneuverability of their machines at high rates of speed, something we like to test, often.

There are also, in N.C., both an absolute speed law, which is the speed limit itself, and there is the basic speed law, which prohibits driving too fast for conditions, and is often lower than the posted limit.

As noted in the class, if temperatures are below freezing and there is ice on the roadways, just because Interstate 85 has a 70 mph speed limit does not mean anyone should actually drive that fast. Drivers are expected to use reason and, when conditions merit, slow down.

Police officers have options when they make a traffic stop. They can make an actual physical arrest, which is usually reserved for a serious offense such as driving while impaired. They can issue a traffic citation, which is most common. The person is called to court with a citation but they are not arrested. A written warning, which does not involve the court, is often used for equipment violations or minor moving violations. And finally, an officer can issue a verbal warning, explaining to the driver that they have erred. The instructors, in talking about these options and the overview of making traffic stops, talked about the officer’s approach, noting that an officer should always strive to be professional and not condescending, because the goal is always compliance. Officers want people to obey the law, because it is required but also because they know all too well the things that can happen when we don’t.

We talked about the necessity of wearing seatbelts, and the improvements in car construction that have added to the protection of the driver and passengers. Cars made in the 1960s may have been “tanks,” heavy metal creations that kept the vehicle itself from extensive damage in many cases, but it did next to nothing to protect humans inside. Today, the benefit of the full seatbelt, the air bags and the safety glass that won’t shatter in pieces are all intended to protect the human inside the car more than the car itself.

We discussed how much an increase in speed can increase the likelihood of a fatality in a car crash, and in 2023, in this state, speed was determined to be a contributing factor in 22.4 percent of all fatal crashes, representing 389 deaths.

Officers these days who are involved in accident reconstruction, we learned, need to be good at math, even though there are a number of tools that can now help with calculations. With the training they receive, they can work out how fast cars were moving, when a driver began to brake (if they did), what position the cars were in upon impact, whether or not people were wearing seatbelts — the list of information they can suss out is impressive. And in cars made these days, there is also what most of us know as the “Black Box” from airplanes inside cars. Called the Event Data Recorder or EDR, it can provide investigators crucial information that allows them to make informed decisions about what happened just before and in the crash.

The sergeants then moved to discussion about driving while impaired or DWI. Once called driving under the influence, or DUI, it focused more on alcohol impairment, but these days, drivers can be under the influence of alcohol or drugs, including legal prescription drugs that advise people not to operate heavy equipment or drive while using them.

Currently, North Carolina ranks fifth in DWI related deaths. In 2023, 1,686 people died in N.C. in car crashes. Of those, 22.3 percent or 377 were alcohol-related fatalities. Officers in traffic control receive training not only in how to use tools such as a Breathalyzer to help determine if someone is drunk or a Horizontal Gaze Nystagmus (HGN) test to determine possible impairment, but experience in the field teaches officers other indicators to watch for that are not as obvious, but often just as accurate.

In watching the performance of a driver, an officer can tell there is an issue when a driver cannot stay in their lane, or is driving too slowly or too fast or alternating, struggling with proper braking or starting from a stop, making improper turns, following too close. When they stop the driver, and the person has trouble putting the car in park, getting the keys out, or stumbles getting out of the vehicle then has to lean on something to remain steady, these are all indications there is a possible impairment issue.

Officers are then watching the driver, noting any bloodshot eyes, soiled clothes, fumbling with keys or any other items they should be able to manage, slurred speech, abusive language (which is sadly common), unusual odors of alcohol or other substances and the presence of masking odors.

The HGN is a very accurate determinant of impairment, because it is a physical response that the person cannot control. When impaired, a person’s eyes will involuntarily jerk as the eyes move to the side.

There are also several physical field sobriety tests that can be administered, and the first part of any one is seeing if the person can follow directions.

Anyone with a blood alcohol content of 0.08 or higher is considered to be driving under the influence. Impairment, for whatever reason, is an incredible danger, both to the impaired driver and to everyone who shares their path. The class got to see some graphic images of crashes, some involving high rates of speed and some involving impaired drivers. The damage to the vehicles was startling, and the amount of violence at the moment of impact was evident. (Worthy of note: no victims were in the photos we saw.)

Working in traffic control may seem to some to be less exciting than say vice, but in truth, traffic patrol is an essential and crucial part of police work, making it as safe as possible for us to get to and from work, for our teens to get to and from school, for our work crews to safely maintain our roads. Our everyday lives are now so rooted in automotive travel that keeping that part of our lives as risk free as possible is a huge commitment. Along with patrol, the traffic division carries much of the day in and day out work of a police department.

Next week, we’ll get to see some of this in action, as we will be on the scene of a check point.