Police officers issued 874 traffic citations to motorists along the Richmond Highway corridor during the month of November. That statistic was shared by Cpt. Alan Hanson, commander of the Fairfax County Police Department’s (FCPD) Traffic Division, at Franconia District Supervisor Rodney Lusk’s Traffic Town Hall on Dec. 7.
According to an FCPD spokesperson, the citations were issued as part of a Pedestrian High Visibility Enforcement campaign conducted by FCPD’s Motor Squad in November and on one additional date in December. Violations ranged from speeding to disregarding traffic signals to failure to stop before turning right on red, and others. The incidents took place in both the Mount Vernon and Franconia Police Districts, which include portions of the corridor.
During the county’s kick-off of its “Take a Moment” road safety campaign this past September, Fairfax County Police Chief Kevin Davis said that speeding and failure to obey traffic devices or signs were the number one and two reasons respectively for traffic citations being issued in Fairfax County. He also noted that FCPD had issued 5,000 more citations year-to-date in 2022 than during the same period in 2021.
Speeding has been a persistent problem along the Richmond Highway corridor. The Virginia Department of Transportation’s final report on whether to lower the existing 45-mile-per-hour speed limit along the corridor between the Capital Beltway interchange and Fort Belvoir has been delayed to early 2023, according to VDOT’s speed limit study website.
