Stamford Police Traffic Stops Increased In '23 After Several-Year Lull

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“This is not an isolated situation in Stamford with the decrease in motor vehicle enforcement throughout this timeframe,” DeRubeis said. “It’s an issue that the data clearly reflects and impacts the whole state.”

Every police beat in the city has seen at least a 25 percent increase from 2022 to 2023, according to DeRubeis.

“We’re not just targeting downtown, we’re not just targeting the West Side or the East Side,” DeRubeis added. “It tells me we’re doing things consistently across the board.”

Baker, who is in charge of the SPD’s patrol division, said every officer used to be certified to operate speed radar and laser, but that’s no longer the case.

Over the last eight months, Baker said the Booth has trained over 20 new officers to use the equipment to get them out in the field working on traffic enforcement.

Booth is the SPD’s Collision Analysis and Reconstruction Squad supervisor and oversees the traffic enforcement unit.

Additionally, the SPD has taken two officers off the midnight shift on an overtime basis to bolster targeted traffic enforcement areas primarily during rush hour in the morning when there are officer shift changes and holes in coverage.

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However, one frustrating aspect of the data for DeRubeis is the fact that year after year, over two-thirds of all motor vehicle stops in the city are Stamford residents. The majority of vehicle stops are Connecticut residents.

The reasons for the traffic stops are consistently related to speeding, traffic control violations and cell phone violations, DeRubeis said.

Baker added that officers have been asking offenders where they’re coming from and where they’re going to.

“The overwhelming majority of the people that are speeding are in the neighborhoods that we’re targeting,” Baker said. Reasons for speeding include being late for work or late bringing children to school, “human things we always do,” Baker said.

Representatives on the committee expressed a desire to share the traffic stop data with their constituents to educate them on the importance of motor vehicle and pedestrian safety.

Recently, the SPD launched a pedestrian safety campaign that ties into Stamford’s Vision Zero campaign, which Mayor Caroline Simmons launched in 2022 with a goal to end all traffic fatalities and injuries in the city by 2032.

There have been several pedestrian and motor vehicle deaths in Stamford in recent years, especially across 2022 and 2023.

“When you break down these accidents, I would say, I don’t want to throw a number out there, but a lot of times pedestrians aren’t obeying the street signal signs and the crossing signs and things of that nature,” DeRubeis said. “It’s human nature. There are too many temptations. People are looking at their phones, there’s too many distractions, but we can’t just use that as an excuse.”

DeRubeis said increasing safety is three-fold: education for the public, enforcement by police, and engineering to make roadways and crosswalks safer.

“We have to come up with some aggressive solutions to that, and I believe this campaign will help in that,” DeRubeis said, referring to the police department’s safety campaign, titled “Walk This Way.”

DeRubeis said the police department will send out additional information on the campaign this week.

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