Emphasis put on catching aggressive drivers
By: Joseph Harvie
Township police were swarming on Route 1 Monday morning, patrolling the highway looking for aggressive drivers.
The police were targeting drivers who rode in the shoulder to avoid rush-hour traffic, passed other vehicles illegally or did anything else to make the roadways unsafe.
"Our goal is to make motorists aware of the everyday actions that often lead to motor vehicle accidents," township Police Chief Raymond Hayducka said. "This enforcement is focused on safety."
The increased enforcement is part of $19,000 grant the township received from the state to target aggressive drivers.
More than seven patrol cars were riding along the Route 1 corridor Monday morning. Besides the increased police presence on the highway, the officers also had a digital display sign on the south side of the highway between Deans Lane and Beekman Road that read, "Aggressive driving enforcement. Zero tolerance. Drive Safe."
The police invited the South Brunswick Post to ride along with one officer, 20-year department veteran Patrol Officer Robert Weiler, last week.
Office Weiler said that a lot of the problems come from people being in a rush, but said people have come up with a variety of excuses as to why they break traffic laws.
"After 20 years, I’ve pretty much heard every excuse," Officer Weiler said. " ‘I’m late for work. There’s traffic, and I have to get where I need to be.’ People try to rationalize their actions, but what they have to understand is that there are other people on the road. And when they break the law they put the other drivers at risk."
Driving on the highway, Officer Weiler typed license plate numbers of vehicles riding in the front and back of him into his vehicle’s mobile data computer, which he said is used by more than 150 police departments in the state also use.
"It will tell me if the registration is valid, the driver’s license is valid or if there are any warrants out for their arrest," Officer Weiler said.
In addition, Office Weiler said that there are often notations in the computer about the driver.
"If they’ve been issued a warning, sometimes it gets put into the system," Office Weiler said. "So if they lie to us and say they haven’t pulled over we can say ‘you were pulled over six months ago.’ It’s not like you forget getting pulled over six months ago."
At around 8:45 a.m., Officer Weiler stopped to assist another officer who had pulled a woman over for speeding. The woman claimed that the officer was racially profiling her.
Officer Weiler said the department doesn’t tolerate racial profiling and doesn’t believe the traffic stop was related to race.
"In this day and age, in this state, with everything that has gone on with racial profiling, it just doesn’t happen," Officer Weiler said. "It would be stupid. You would not only lose your job, but you would lose your pension. We just don’t do that in this department or in any department in the state."
He said that the woman refused to leave the shoulder of the highway after the traffic stop because she was going to make phone calls.
"It’s the judge who will decide on her case," Officer Weiler said. "She has every right to stay there if she wants to, we don’t have to stay with her though."
He said the one thing the police have on their side in cases such as this are the cameras installed in each of the vehicles.
"Every officer is miked up and the video doesn’t turn off," Officer Weiler said. "We have an unbiased party with us all the time. The video and mikes don’t lie. We’ve had them in every car since 2000. And it works on two levels. It protects the public and it protects the officer."
About 10 minutes later, Office Weiler, who had been watching a van driving behind him try to ride in the shoulder, put his lights on and pulled into the shoulder.
He quickly put the car in park, unfastened his seat belt and opened the door after checking the side-view mirror for oncoming traffic. He pointed to a blue Honda Odyssey and directed the woman driving to pull over. He approached her window and took her license and registration.
The woman waited for the officer to come back to her window, but first tried to bargain with the officer.
"She asked me if I could just giver her a warning," Officer Weiler said. "But she knew what she did was wrong, and I told her that she knew she wasn’t supposed to be driving in the shoulder."
When he came back to the patrol car, he swiped magnetic strip on the woman’s licenses through the mobile data computer, similar to inserting a bank card into an ATM machine, and wrote her a ticket for improper lane use. If the woman is found guilty or pleads guilty, she will receive two points, Officer Weiler said. He said that he could have given her a four-point ticket for improper passing, but because he did not see her pass anyone, he issued her the summons for using the shoulder as a lane, which is illegal.
He said that people often get confrontational when they receive a ticket.
"I tell them, ‘if you didn’t break the law then we wouldn’t be having this conversation right now, or any conversation at all,’ " Officer Weiler said.
Office Weiler said that while on the road his goal is not to issue summonses or give out tickets, but to keep the roads safe.
"We are out here to protect a majority of the drivers from the minority of drivers who break the law," Officer Weiler said.
The township Police Department will continue its aggressive driving detail until Dec. 29 on roads such as Routes 1, 27, 130 and 522.

