Date Published: January 5, 2005
Kingsport police begin weekly series of traffic tips
Author: J.H. OSBORNE

KINGSPORT - If you're driving right now, you shouldn't be reading this - or doing much anything else either, besides driving. "The biggest thing is pay attention," said Kingsport Police Department Sgt. Joe Earles. "You could avoid a lot of accidents if you just pay attention."

The Kingsport Police Department launched a yearlong public awareness campaign Wednesday to draw attention to 52 tips for safer driving. The campaign comes on the heels of a record number of traffic-related deaths in the city in 2004.

Police plan to release a safe driving tip weekly for the rest of 2005. Then they'll start the 52-week cycle again.

The Times-News plans to publish each week's tip on page 1B of the newspaper every Sunday, beginning with Tip #2 on Jan. 9. Tip #1 was released Wednesday and is depicted in a graphic accompanying this article.

Earles and Patrolman Thomas Patton, the KPD's community relations officer, said all the tips in the series are designed to be simple and to the point. Both officers, like Police Chief Mark Addington a day earlier, stressed the importance of paying attention while behind the wheel. "If I could say there's one trend identified ... it's a lack of attention to safe driving by the motoring public," Addington said when talking about 2004 traffic accidents. "When you're driving, you are going to do other things," Patton said. "But the driving part needs to always be your primary function. It can't come second. That's the number one responsibility."

Topics of upcoming traffic safety tips range from required stopping when a school bus is stopped in oncoming lanes to not stopping for oncoming funeral processions. Failure to stop for school buses while children are being dropped off is a common problem, Patton said. "Most people stop on a two-lane road," Patton said. "But what they don't understand is ... if there is no median, even if a school bus in on the other side of a six-lane roadway like Stone Drive - you have to stop." Another tip topic: Stop signs mean stop, not tapping the brakes.

The public awareness effort is just one of several steps taken by the KPD in recent months to address safer driving. Others include restaffing a traffic squad created in 1997 and re-establishing a traffic safety committee. T he traffic squad - a four-officer unit whose daily mission is traffic enforcement and crash investigation - was nearly dismantled last year after a significant reduction in manpower due to retirements, officers finding better-paying jobs, and officers leaving the field altogether. Since the unit was fully restaffed in early November, the city experienced its longest stretch of time without any fatal crashes.

Earles said the committee has identified high-volume intersections and asked patrol officers to spend as much time as possible at those locations when they're between calls, and officers will continue to maintain a presence in school zones as well.
Long-term goals of the committee include additional officers on the traffic unit.

To view the '52 Weeks of Tips' click the link below. You will need Adobe Acrobat Reader to view the file.

52 Weeks of Tips