Three of Howard County's most lethal killers are speed, drunken driving and neglecting to wear a seat belt, according to Sgt. Frederick Von Briesen.

Von Briesen, who leads the Howard County Police Department's Traffic Enforcement Division, said a key piece of his job is to crack down on driving offenses, a job he hopes will save lives.

To that end, in 2007, county officers arrested 362 drivers who were charged with driving under the influence of alcohol or driving while intoxicated, and issued 3,486 speeding citations, 2,657 speeding warnings, 4,903 seat belt citations and 55 child safety seat citations, according to data from the department.

"Those are the three things that are killing people in the county: Speeding, not wearing a seat belt and DUI," Von Briesen said.

His division's efforts were recently honored by a national police association when, in June, Howard placed first in a traffic safety competition.

Howard placed first out of 27 departments from across the U.S. in the National Chief's Challenge, an annual traffic safety competition run by the International Association of Chiefs of Police, according to Clarence Bell, a project manager for the association.

Association leaders will present the award in November at the group's annual conference in San Diego.

Howard's department was noted for its traffic training program for officers including radar training and public information initiatives with school-aged children and the public, Bell said.

"They were heavy on the public information and the education side," Bell said. "They rated very high with the newspaper articles (and) press releases."

With about 400 officers, the Howard County Police Department competed with other departments that have 201 to 500 employees, Bell said.

Von Briesen said he was pleased with the award.

"Just the fact that someone outside your agency judging a large number of programs decided that we're worthy of first place, I think that's a great achievement," he said.

Von Briesen noted that the contest judges consider the number of arrests and citations issued by a department along with other efforts to combat traffic accidents.

"It's not just enforcement, the number of arrests," he said. "It's the educational component that we do and the advertising component that we do."

Von Briesen said his department participates in educational programs at public schools that aim to educate youngsters about traffic safety, and a program that advocates parents walking their elementary school-aged children to school.

Howard's police department also won Chief's Challenge awards in 1998 and 2002, Von Briesen said.

user comments (0)