Latest / Talking Michigan Transportation / How Michigan State Police deploy ghosts to curb distracted driving

Transcript

How Michigan State Police deploy ghosts to curb distracted driving · Talking Michigan Transportation

• 0:07
  Jeff Cranson: Hello, welcome to the Talking Michigan Transportation Podcast.
• 0:10
  Jeff Cranson: I'm Jeff Cranston.
• 0:11
  Jeff Cranson: Today I'm going to be talking with a couple of people about an innovative program that the Michigan State Police are using to try to track distracted drivers, especially in work zones.
• 0:26
  Jeff Cranson: One in particular on I-96 in Ionia County heavily traveled corridor between Lansing and Grand Rapids, a major project going on to rebuild several miles of freeway there.
• 0:39
  Jeff Cranson: And as this project began, mdot and state police saw a rash of crashes early on, many involving people speeding in the work zone or being distracted.
• 0:51
  Jeff Cranson: So the Ghost Rider program actually has people in unmarked cars that monitor and flag people who are texting or doing something to violate the state's law against using handheld devices while you're driving.
• 1:08
  Jeff Cranson: I'm going to be talking first with Tanya Pawlukiewicz, who is a construction engineer for the Grand Region helping to oversee that project, about what it means to try to maintain some kind of mobility on such a busy roadway that so many people rely on for commercial use or for commuting.
• 1:26
  Jeff Cranson: Later I'll speak with Sergeant Bradley Campbell of the Michigan State Police about some statistics and about how the program works and other things that they're doing to try to curtail speeding and distracted driving.
• 1:38
  Jeff Cranson: So I hope you enjoy it.
• 1:40
  Jeff Cranson: So once again.
• 1:41
  Jeff Cranson: First I'm speaking with Tanya Pawlukiewicz, who is the construction engineer for the Grand Region.
• 1:45
  Jeff Cranson: She oversees a lot of the big time projects in the Grand Rapids area.
• 1:50
  Jeff Cranson: This one that I mentioned in the introduction on I-96 is one of the bigger projects that will consume a lot of attention over the next couple of years.
• 2:00
  Jeff Cranson: Tanya, first time visitor to the podcast, thank you for taking time to do this.
• 2:06
  Tanya Pawlukiewicz: Yeah, thank you for having me.
• 2:07
  Tanya Pawlukiewicz: I appreciate being asked to come on.
• 2:09
  Jeff Cranson: So let's talk a little bit first overall about your job and what it is you do, before we jump into the 96 project and some of the challenges there.
• 2:18
  Tanya Pawlukiewicz: Yeah, so, as you had mentioned, I'm the construction engineer at the Grand Rapids TSC, so I help oversee the construction projects in Ionia, kent, allegan and Barry counties.
• 2:30
  Tanya Pawlukiewicz: So what that means is we review all the plans that are going out the door, make sure that we can actually build them and maintain traffic through those work zones.
• 2:38
  Tanya Pawlukiewicz: Those projects are going on.
• 2:46
  Tanya Pawlukiewicz: We work hand in hand with the contractors and the consultants to deliver those projects and build those projects as safely as we can with the best quality that we can, and then we furnish payment to the contractors for those projects throughout the construction.
• 2:59
  Tanya Pawlukiewicz: And obviously with that we have a lot of work zones that we put out throughout our system.
• 3:02
  Tanya Pawlukiewicz: So keeping a safe work zone, keeping the motor safe and work zones that we put out throughout our system so keeping a safe work zone, keeping the motor safe and our workers safe that are out there not only MDOT workers but the contractor and consultant staff is absolutely paramount.
• 3:15
  Jeff Cranson: So, like a lot of DOTs and really even county and local street departments, mdot's put a lot of emphasis on mobility and user delay costs.
• 3:27
  Jeff Cranson: And how to you know all the jokes about winter and construction season in Michigan?
• 3:33
  Jeff Cranson: You know there's a lot of truth to that, because there's only so many months of the year you can do this kind of serious work.
• 3:37
  Jeff Cranson: So you and your colleagues have to balance constantly.
• 3:41
  Jeff Cranson: How to you know accommodate people who expect that their 40-minute commute is always going to be 40 minutes, no matter what, and how to safely get the work done.
• 3:51
  Jeff Cranson: And that's what this is about.
• 3:52
  Jeff Cranson: And this one presented some particular challenges.
• 3:55
  Jeff Cranson: As it began, even though it's pretty much straight, flat road without a lot of curves on that segment, there were a lot of crashes people coming up on the scene, cars were backed up and they were distracted, likely and speeding and couldn't stop.
• 4:12
  Jeff Cranson: You sent me a photo of one yesterday that was particularly bad and amazing that the driver walked away.
• 4:19
  Jeff Cranson: So talk about how you strike that balance.
• 4:23
  Tanya Pawlukiewicz: Yeah, you know, like you said, there's a lot that goes into a construction project you had mentioned.
• 4:27
  Tanya Pawlukiewicz: We're obviously trying to get the project done as fast as we can.
• 4:31
  Tanya Pawlukiewicz: So obviously that usually requires single lane closures, double lane closures or full closures of the roadway.
• 4:38
  Tanya Pawlukiewicz: And we review all those impacts.
• 4:40
  Tanya Pawlukiewicz: Is you know how long is somebody going to be waiting in a backup?
• 4:43
  Tanya Pawlukiewicz: If it exceeds 10 minutes, that's usually critical.
• 4:45
  Tanya Pawlukiewicz: So then we determine which is going to be the best traffic control setup for those projects.
• 4:50
  Tanya Pawlukiewicz: So in the 96 project we currently have single lane closures throughout the project.
• 4:56
  Tanya Pawlukiewicz: It's a little under nine mile segment.
• 4:59
  Tanya Pawlukiewicz: So with those nine mile closures you have a lot of workers that are out there.
• 5:04
  Tanya Pawlukiewicz: You have a lot of motorists that are slowing down through the work zone because it is where workers are present 45 miles per hour.
• 5:11
  Tanya Pawlukiewicz: And then you have a lot of trucks that are trying to get in and out of the work zone that are hauling material in.
• 5:18
  Tanya Pawlukiewicz: Right now we're hauling in sub-base, which is the sand and gravel that go underneath the temporary widening portion, and then, once they dump, they're going to be getting back into the active landing of traffic as well.
• 5:29
  Tanya Pawlukiewicz: So trying to coordinate all of those and make sure that we can be productive out there so we get a good cost for the project and a good quality project.
• 5:39
  Tanya Pawlukiewicz: But also trying to minimize the impacts for the commuters, for the truck traffic and anybody traveling through our zone is really important.
• 5:47
  Jeff Cranson: Do you feel like?
• 5:47
  Jeff Cranson: I mean, we know there's lots of things going on, starting with the pandemic.
• 5:52
  Jeff Cranson: Obviously we know that people were speeding at incredible rates.
• 5:56
  Jeff Cranson: The state police have tracked that and that's been nationwide.
• 5:58
  Jeff Cranson: There was more drivers with substance abuse issues, more people were drinking during the pandemic all those factors.
• 6:06
  Jeff Cranson: But it also seems like in these work zones there's this frustration.
• 6:11
  Jeff Cranson: Everybody wants the roads fixed.
• 6:14
  Jeff Cranson: The governor ran on fixing the damn roads and so we put a lot of money in the past few years and there's a lot going on and everywhere you go in the summer you feel like you're running into a construction project.
• 6:23
  Jeff Cranson: Do you think some of that frustration plays into the behavior?
• 6:28
  Tanya Pawlukiewicz: Oh, I absolutely think so, and I don't even think it's.
• 6:31
  Tanya Pawlukiewicz: You know all about the frustration.
• 6:33
  Tanya Pawlukiewicz: I think everybody's so used to multitasking these days.
• 6:37
  Tanya Pawlukiewicz: You know what's one of the first thing I do when I get in my car.
• 6:40
  Tanya Pawlukiewicz: I GPS the route before I leave the driveway to see if I'm going to hit one of my own construction zones.
• 6:45
  Tanya Pawlukiewicz: Do we have a single lane closure up today?
• 6:47
  Tanya Pawlukiewicz: And I think a lot of people don't think ahead and do that before they leave and see how long it's going to take them to get to work.
• 6:53
  Tanya Pawlukiewicz: So they see construction signs or they know that there's a construction zone up ahead, or they just see brake lights and don't know about the zone.
• 7:01
  Tanya Pawlukiewicz: And what's the first thing they do?
• 7:02
  Tanya Pawlukiewicz: They grab their phone.
• 7:07
  Tanya Pawlukiewicz: They're going to see how long they're going to be sitting in traffic, or, if they are sitting in traffic, they're grabbing their phone and looking to see if somebody texted them.
• 7:11
  Tanya Pawlukiewicz: There's just so much multitasking going on when, really, when you are in that driver's seat, it's your job to drive the car and drive that car safely, and I think that kind of goes out figuratively out the window right when you have all these other things that you could be doing rather than sitting in traffic.
• 7:29
  Jeff Cranson: Yeah, the technology gives and takes away.
• 7:31
  Jeff Cranson: I think you've probably heard my analogy to how we build better bombs.
• 7:37
  Jeff Cranson: We have better defense systems, and then we also build better armament to protect ourselves, so then you have to build even better bombs.
• 7:43
  Jeff Cranson: So it seems like the more we do to make our cars safer, the more we do to make our drivers not safe.
• 7:49
  Tanya Pawlukiewicz: Right, you nailed it, you nailed it right on the head.
• 7:51
  Tanya Pawlukiewicz: And there's just so many distractions and it's not even just cell phones, right there's.
• 7:55
  Tanya Pawlukiewicz: There's kids in the car and you see a lot of the distracted driving in our younger kids.
• 8:00
  Tanya Pawlukiewicz: You know just, I think in 2022, younger kids, you know just, I think in 2022, distracted driving took over 3000 people, you know, and that was all just related to distracted driving and really that comes out to be nine Americans a day being taken by distracted driving back in 2022.
• 8:18
  Tanya Pawlukiewicz: It's a scary world out there and people are doing something other than driving the car, you know and that's what we need to get back to yeah.
• 8:26
  Jeff Cranson: And those are verifiable stats, we probably have reason to believe those numbers are even higher, right?
• 8:31
  Tanya Pawlukiewicz: Absolutely.
• 8:32
  Tanya Pawlukiewicz: Like I said, those were just taken from 22 from the National Highway Traffic Administration, so those were the most recent ones that I had.
• 8:39
  Jeff Cranson: Yeah, but what I mean is that the case is where they can prove in the investigation that it involved distracted driving.
• 8:45
  Jeff Cranson: Sometimes it's hard to prove, but you suspect that was the case.
• 8:49
  Tanya Pawlukiewicz: Oh, absolutely, and we see it every day out on 96 in our construction zone.
• 8:53
  Tanya Pawlukiewicz: Everybody's picking up the phone.
• 8:54
  Tanya Pawlukiewicz: They have no concept of the fact that there is a person standing next to them 10 feet away, on the other side of the drums, completely open to the elements.
• 9:02
  Tanya Pawlukiewicz: They're not, you know.
• 9:03
  Tanya Pawlukiewicz: They don't have a bubble around them or anything like that, and we're driving, you know, 45 miles an hour, hopefully.
• 9:15
  Tanya Pawlukiewicz: I mean, some of the patrol units have pulled people over going 75 miles an hour in a work zone when there's people standing next to them 10 feet away and no concept of what that would feel like, you know, because they've never stood in a work zone like that, having traffic fly by going 70 miles an hour.
• 9:27
  Jeff Cranson: So have you ever worked as closely with law enforcement on a project as you have with Sergeant Campbell and the Michigan State Police on this one with the Ghost Rider program?
• 9:41
  Tanya Pawlukiewicz: I would say this project's been going for about a month and a half.
• 9:44
  Tanya Pawlukiewicz: I've never worked so closely with Michigan State Police this quickly on a project.
• 9:51
  Tanya Pawlukiewicz: I've done several projects on 96 over the last 15 years I've been here.
• 9:56
  Tanya Pawlukiewicz: I think we're usually doing some sort of a construction project on 96 between Lansing and Grand Rapids about on average every two to three years just due to the condition and the age of the pavement.
• 10:06
  Tanya Pawlukiewicz: But this one we knew going into it, we planned for it, we had planned for heightened enforcement through this corridor just based on the history and the crash pattern that we've had in work zones throughout the last few years.
• 10:19
  Tanya Pawlukiewicz: But I think by far we have put the most emphasis on this segment in the last month and a half, like you had referenced.
• 10:27
  Jeff Cranson: Do you feel like you got caught a little by surprise going into this with so many crashes, especially at the beginning?
• 10:35
  Jeff Cranson: I mean, we know what's going on, we know how people have been driving the past few years, few years.
• 10:40
  Jeff Cranson: But again, given the sight lines and all the warnings, all the signs, all the, you know what Waze does, what Google Maps does, what Apple Maps does, what MDOT's site, mydrive, does, that people still come up on these scenes and didn't know about it.
• 11:05
  Tanya Pawlukiewicz: I think surprised is an accurate word.
• 11:06
  Tanya Pawlukiewicz: I think we had close to four or five crashes the first week the construction zone was set up.
• 11:08
  Tanya Pawlukiewicz: We have seen some of those taper off, I think, just because we have I'm calling them repeat customers.
• 11:12
  Tanya Pawlukiewicz: But you have commuters that are driving that every day.
• 11:14
  Tanya Pawlukiewicz: You have truckers that drive you know the same route you know a couple of times a week, so they're more aware of it now.
• 11:20
  Tanya Pawlukiewicz: But the part I'm surprised about is when we get the calls to the office complaining that they had to sit in traffic for 10 minutes or whatever, and they say I didn't pass one sign that told me about this construction zone.
• 11:33
  Tanya Pawlukiewicz: That's what I'm surprised about, because we have flashing message boards, we have static signs, which are the orange signs with the words on them, and some of know some of these people pass upwards of 10 signs and they tell me they didn't see any.
• 11:48
  Tanya Pawlukiewicz: That's what surprises me.
• 11:49
  Tanya Pawlukiewicz: So if they aren't seeing the signs, what were they looking at before they entered the zone?
• 11:54
  Jeff Cranson: Well, and so many people if they don't have their own nav system in their vehicle.
• 11:57
  Jeff Cranson: Now you know, you have Apple CarPlay, and whatever app you use as a GPS device shows you color-coded lines on the road ahead to tell you that, hey, if it's red you're going to be slowing way down.
• 12:11
  Jeff Cranson: I'm like you.
• 12:12
  Jeff Cranson: I don't get it either.
• 12:13
  Jeff Cranson: But speaking of that frustration, so tell me this when you meet somebody, somebody introduces you to somebody and they tell you, ask where you work, and say you know you, explain what you do, how does that conversation usually go?
• 12:29
  Tanya Pawlukiewicz: I wouldn't say favorable.
• 12:30
  Tanya Pawlukiewicz: But when I say, hey, you know, I'm Tanya, I work at MDOT, I work in construction, is primarily what I say.
• 12:35
  Tanya Pawlukiewicz: And they say, oh well, when is this job going to be over, you know?
• 12:40
  Tanya Pawlukiewicz: And then they ask me about whatever job it is.
• 12:42
  Tanya Pawlukiewicz: And then you hit the nail on the head earlier on when you said people want the roads to be fixed.
• 12:47
  Tanya Pawlukiewicz: But we all kind of lost a lot of patience, I feel like, over the last decade, and we forget how long it takes to actually complete these types of projects.
• 12:57
  Tanya Pawlukiewicz: So, yeah, it's definitely you get an earful from time to time, but rightfully so.
• 13:03
  Tanya Pawlukiewicz: Everybody's a taxpayer and they all have a vested interest in it and, quite honestly, all of these construction zones touch somebody's life one way or another, whether it's they're getting something delivered to their house or they're driving through it or bringing their kids to school.
• 13:16
  Tanya Pawlukiewicz: So we got to be mindful of trying to meet all those needs as well.
• 13:20
  Jeff Cranson: Well, I think you made a good point earlier too, and it's a good reminder that people forget sometimes that you and all of your colleagues drive too, and so you're.
• 13:29
  Jeff Cranson: You're slowed down.
• 13:30
  Jeff Cranson: You don't have any any secret way of getting around, you don't know any shortcuts that are available to anybody else, so I don't know how you you explain that to people too.
• 13:41
  Jeff Cranson: Sometimes you have to say yeah, trust me, you know, I'm eager for this job to be done for lots of reasons.
• 13:46
  Tanya Pawlukiewicz: Yep, absolutely, and we're all impacted by it.
• 13:49
  Tanya Pawlukiewicz: Right, and I think what people don't know is all the time and effort that's put into it on the front end.
• 13:55
  Tanya Pawlukiewicz: I mean, we talk about some of these projects for years before they come.
• 13:58
  Tanya Pawlukiewicz: You know we're looking at our budgets.
• 14:00
  Tanya Pawlukiewicz: What can we allocate for additional work zone enforcement or you know these ghost rider operations and things like that.
• 14:08
  Tanya Pawlukiewicz: We do spend money on those to improve the safety and really that's what we're doing out.
• 14:13
  Tanya Pawlukiewicz: There is just what else can we do to make these, these projects safer.
• 14:16
  Tanya Pawlukiewicz: We got temporary rumble strips.
• 14:17
  Tanya Pawlukiewicz: So even if you are looking down at your phone, it's going to shake your car and go to try and get you to wake up and look up and realize that there's a construction zone, there's flashing lights, there's flashing signs.
• 14:28
  Tanya Pawlukiewicz: You know what else can we do.
• 14:30
  Tanya Pawlukiewicz: You know, trying to hit all the senses right, trying to hit everybody's senses.
• 14:34
  Tanya Pawlukiewicz: So they look up, they're paying attention, they just focus on driving through the work zone.
• 14:40
  Jeff Cranson: I'm among many who appreciate the work you do, and everybody like you across the state that has to deal with these things, and so thank you for doing that and thanks for taking time to talk about it.
• 14:49
  Tanya Pawlukiewicz: No, I appreciate it and I appreciate the opportunity and, like I said, just for you and everybody else, please drive safe out there and keep everybody safe, everybody in your vehicle and the vehicles around you and the workers on the side of the road.
• 15:02
  Jeff Cranson: Stay with us.
• 15:02
  Jeff Cranson: We'll have more on the other side of this important message.
• 15:06
  MDOT Message: In Michigan.
• 15:06
  MDOT Message: Safety comes first on the roads.
• 15:08
  MDOT Message: To combat distracted driving, Michigan passed the Hands-Free Law.
• 15:12
  MDOT Message: The law makes holding or manually using a cell phone or other mobile electronic device while operating a vehicle a primary offense.
• 15:20
  MDOT Message: This means an officer can stop and ticket you for violating the law.
• 15:24
  MDOT Message: This can include, but not limited to, sending or receiving a call.
• 15:31
  MDOT Message: Sending, receiving or reading a text or email, accessing, reading or posting to social media sites or entering locations into the phone GPS.
• 15:39
  Jeff Cranson: With this law in place, drivers are encouraged to stay focused, keeping their hands on the wheel and their attention on the wheel and their attention on the road.
• 15:45
  Jeff Cranson: Drive smart, drive, safe drive hands-free.
• 15:49
  MDOT Message: Michigan's hands-free law making the road safer for everyone.
• 15:56
  Jeff Cranson: I'm now with of the Michigan State Police, lakeview Post.
• 16:01
  Jeff Cranson: Sergeant Campbell, thanks for taking time to talk with us today.
• 16:06
  Bradley Campbell: Oh, good morning.
• 16:06
  Bradley Campbell: Thanks for having me.
• 16:08
  Jeff Cranson: So let's start first with a little bit of your background before we talk about the Ghost Rider program and all that MSP does to support these construction projects and try to make the work zone safer.
• 16:20
  Jeff Cranson: How did you decide to become a trooper?
• 16:29
  Bradley Campbell: Are you long out of the academy and how did you end up at the Lakeview Post?
• 16:32
  Bradley Campbell: Well, I've been in the department for 25 years, or just over 25 years.
• 16:38
  Bradley Campbell: Initially, when I was younger, I didn't start out to become any type of law enforcement.
• 16:46
  Bradley Campbell: I was kind of far from that mindset.
• 16:47
  Bradley Campbell: And I happened to join the military, did my service, and I was a military police officer at the time and I just kind of fell into it.
• 16:56
  Bradley Campbell: It was a knack that I enjoyed and right after I got out of doing seven years of service with the Marines, state police was hiring.
• 17:07
  Bradley Campbell: So I jumped on that and came back home to Michigan and here I am, so it's been great.
• 17:15
  Jeff Cranson: So interesting.
• 17:16
  Jeff Cranson: You were an MP.
• 17:16
  Jeff Cranson: Where were you stationed?
• 17:20
  Bradley Campbell: Really all over the United States, california.
• 17:22
  Bradley Campbell: I've been to Quantico.
• 17:25
  Bradley Campbell: Quantico, virginia was my first duty station.
• 17:28
  Bradley Campbell: Uh, I spent time in iwakuni, japan, which was really neat.
• 17:33
  Bradley Campbell: That was interesting.
• 17:33
  Bradley Campbell: And um texas, san antonio, um alabama and um gosh missing something A lot of, a lot of places in California.
• 17:46
  Bradley Campbell: So, yeah, it was, uh, it was good and for a young person that was neat to see the world and different things and how things worked uh, you know, in different places uh, besides Michigan.
• 17:58
  Jeff Cranson: So yeah, yeah, you uh literally covered a lot of bases.
• 18:02
  Bradley Campbell: Yeah, I did.
• 18:03
  Bradley Campbell: I moved around a lot, so it was, it was fun.
• 18:06
  Jeff Cranson: So let's talk about the.
• 18:07
  Jeff Cranson: Yeah, I did, I moved around a lot, so it was fun.
• 18:09
  Jeff Cranson: So let's talk about the work at hand.
• 18:12
  Jeff Cranson: Earlier I spoke with Tanya Pulikevich, who's the MDOT construction engineer for the I-96 project in Nionia County, and obviously there are road projects going on all over the state and your department is doing what they can to try to slow drivers down and keep these projects as safe as can be Several in Metro Lansing area, several in Flint, several in Detroit, obviously, but this one particularly caught my eye because early on from the time that the work started, it seemed like we saw an inordinate number of crashes on what is, you know, basically a stretch of road with good sight lines.
• 18:47
  Jeff Cranson: You know it's pretty flat, doesn't have a lot of curves, and yet people seem to be, after all the signs and all the warnings, they seem to come upon these backups and be shocked by it.
• 18:57
  Jeff Cranson: And it's got to be largely because of, you know, speed and distractions.
• 19:03
  Bradley Campbell: You know, talk about what you're seeing you know speed and distractions, you know talk about what you're seeing.
• 19:07
  Bradley Campbell: Well, our post area Lakeview post area covers Gratiot County, ionia County and Montcalm County and each one of those counties we have.
• 19:32
  Bradley Campbell: Gratiot County has US-127, mont County has I-96.
• 19:34
  Bradley Campbell: And out of those three areas of freeway, i-96 is definitely our busiest spot that we work and I agree wholeheartedly that a lot of this is speed and distracted driving as far as those accidents that were occurring right off the get-go.
• 19:46
  Bradley Campbell: And it's still steady.
• 19:49
  Bradley Campbell: I don't know if people are getting used to that being there.
• 19:52
  Bradley Campbell: You know the everyday person that has to travel or commute on I-96 to their job or school or whatever they have going on.
• 20:00
  Bradley Campbell: I think you know a lot of that, they've gotten used to it.
• 20:03
  Bradley Campbell: But it's such a busy highway that a lot of that they've gotten used to it.
• 20:05
  Bradley Campbell: But it's such a busy highway that, uh, a lot of people are traveling through there for the first time and you know I, hopefully I can say that you know our efforts out there are attributing to, you know, fewer accidents.
• 20:17
  Bradley Campbell: That would.
• 20:18
  Bradley Campbell: That would be great to say so.
• 20:19
  Bradley Campbell: I, you know it's.
• 20:20
  Bradley Campbell: It's looking, looking better as it goes along, in my opinion.
• 20:26
  Jeff Cranson: Yeah, and I think you're right.
• 20:28
  Jeff Cranson: I think we can't say for sure without a control experiment, whether it is because of the enforcement or it is because so many people travel that road, you know, several times a week, including commercial drivers, and so they've come to know what to expect.
• 20:41
  Jeff Cranson: But talk a little bit about the Ghost Rider program and how it works.
• 20:48
  Bradley Campbell: Well, they reached out to us at the Lakeview Post, mdot, did the Grand Region and asked us you know, would you be interested in putting some troopers out there, just to, you know, slow traffic down and see if we can do something about these accidents that are happening?
• 21:09
  Bradley Campbell: And we put it together real quick, august actually we started near the end of July starting putting patrols out there when we could throughout the week and August has been the most patrols that we've had out there Right now.
• 21:26
  Bradley Campbell: I've got troopers that are starting right now heading out there today to work that area.
• 21:32
  Bradley Campbell: So it's been busy and I think the troopers that have signed up once they get used to it because honestly, we do have a rural post area where a lot of time is spent traffic enforcement in the county, so they don't get out to 96 as much as we would like them to, but they do get out there when they can.
• 21:55
  Bradley Campbell: But it's better if we have a committed effort out there so they can really see what's happening and get into that traffic side on the expressway.
• 22:09
  Bradley Campbell: So it's been working good.
• 22:12
  Jeff Cranson: So talk about what kinds of things you and your colleagues hear.
• 22:14
  Jeff Cranson: When you investigate a crash and you find whether it's a ghostwriter, stop because you see somebody actually using their phone.
• 22:23
  Jeff Cranson: Or if it's because it's a crash, investigation later.
• 22:26
  Jeff Cranson: What do people say?
• 22:26
  Jeff Cranson: Do they claim ignorance of the law, which is, you know, been in place for more than a year now, or something else?
• 22:34
  Bradley Campbell: and well, and to that I asked one of the troopers out there that was out there yesterday, and I asked him straight up.
• 22:40
  Bradley Campbell: I said what's your, uh, when you have contact with these drivers using their phones while they're driving, what is their excuse?
• 22:49
  Bradley Campbell: And he came back.
• 22:51
  Bradley Campbell: He said well, four out of nine traffic stops that I've had with them using a cell phone, today alone, four were of of the law itself.
• 23:06
  Bradley Campbell: Two were actually from out of state.
• 23:08
  Bradley Campbell: So we'll kind of give them a little bit of a break.
• 23:11
  Bradley Campbell: But I think most states now, um, pretty much across the board, you'd have to think that that's something that's that that state is not going to tolerate.
• 23:21
  Bradley Campbell: But you know, I'm I'm not up to speed on what every state has on the books for that, but in michigan alone, but I, I was, I was kind of shocked.
• 23:31
  Bradley Campbell: I thought it'd be lower than that, but four out of nine was.
• 23:33
  Bradley Campbell: You know, those four people said that you know they had no idea about, about that law specifically.
• 23:39
  Bradley Campbell: So it's, uh, our efforts are, you know, going towards that pretty good driver, and I can do whatever I can on my phone and it shouldn't be a problem.
• 24:10
  Bradley Campbell: But I think, I think that's incorrect.
• 24:13
  Jeff Cranson: Yeah well, I guess you know it's a reminder that most human beings have a phone long before they learn to drive.
• 24:20
  Jeff Cranson: Right, right, Well, what else are you seeing?
• 24:25
  Jeff Cranson: It sounds like a little counterintuitive, but you're finding, actually, that the marked patrol cars are more productive in some cases than the unmarked cars.
• 24:35
  Bradley Campbell: Yeah, and yesterday I had two marked patrol units out there, marked patrol units out there and by far that's been my, you know, the busiest that we've been with this so far.
• 24:50
  Bradley Campbell: And I talked to a few of the troopers that had used the unmarked car out there and it was funny because they said that you know, as soon as somebody would see a trooper in uniform driving an unmarked car, all of a sudden their hands went to 10 and 2 and they start driving really great, you know.
• 25:08
  Bradley Campbell: So people do see them but it's not as quick.
• 25:12
  Bradley Campbell: But, um, I think yesterday kind of proved me wrong, thinking that they would have less, um less stops for people using devices in their phones, which wasn't the case.
• 25:27
  Bradley Campbell: They had quite a few, actually more than speeding stops in the construction zone.
• 25:32
  Bradley Campbell: But I can't say for sure if that's because the troopers just concentrated on distracted driving stops or, you know, if speed wasn't a factor or not out there.
• 25:43
  Jeff Cranson: So, even though these are unmarked cars, the drivers are uniformed troopers.
• 25:48
  Bradley Campbell: Yes, yes, because for us, if their partner out there gets into something that's going to require assistance, then I want a uniformed trooper out there to give them a hand and, honestly, a lot of people don't pay attention to what's going by them at the time or who's driving.
• 26:11
  Bradley Campbell: Some people do, obviously, but I think for the most part they don't see who's driving the car.
• 26:17
  Jeff Cranson: Yeah, that makes sense and it sounds like yesterday from the stats that I saw compiled, one person that was stopped for using their mobile device.
• 26:26
  Jeff Cranson: Uh, ended up with an arrest for 24 outstanding warrants.
• 26:31
  Bradley Campbell: Yes, yeah, it was.
• 26:32
  Bradley Campbell: It seems I saw that today cause I hadn't done stats yet.
• 26:36
  Bradley Campbell: And then, uh, I did that this morning.
• 26:38
  Bradley Campbell: I looked I'm like, oh my gosh, that's, that's quite a lot, a huge amount of warrants, uh, for that individual.
• 26:46
  Bradley Campbell: And uh, well, he got picked of warrants for that individual.
• 26:48
  Bradley Campbell: And well, he got picked up finally, I guess yesterday.
• 26:50
  Bradley Campbell: So who knows if he had been stopped previously and had gone or not?
• 26:58
  Jeff Cranson: So yeah, yeah, well, sometimes obviously it depends on what else the trooper has going on.
• 27:03
  MDOT Message: Right.
• 27:12
  Jeff Cranson: So while I have you, I want to talk about something else that we hear a lot about and is a great frustration for drivers, and that's the people who camp in the left lane.
• 27:15
  Jeff Cranson: For a while, MSP was doing special enforcement on that, In fact, I think including that stretch of 96.
• 27:18
  Jeff Cranson: Do you plan to revisit that, or you know what's your thinking about that and how to enforce that?
• 27:24
  Bradley Campbell: It's something that we look for the left lane driving when we're out there, and I encourage the troopers to go out there and look for that.
• 27:37
  Bradley Campbell: Is it something that I think everybody needs a citation on every time?
• 27:42
  Bradley Campbell: Probably not, but it would be something to stop them and let them know that this is the case.
• 27:48
  Bradley Campbell: And again, that's something that's another thing that a lot of people, when you stop them and talk to them about that, they have no idea that that's actually a law.
• 27:58
  Bradley Campbell: You know, there's, there's yeah, I'm pretty sure there's signage out there saying you know, stay out of the left lane.
• 28:04
  Bradley Campbell: Pretty much we do run across that quite a bit and it's funny if I check in with our dispatch center to go out and say that I'm working traffic on I-96, the dispatcher will give me a call and say, hey, make sure you take care of those left lane drivers out there today.
• 28:20
  Bradley Campbell: That's funny.
• 28:23
  Bradley Campbell: Yeah, they travel that road back and forth to work, so that one dispatcher particularly.
• 28:29
  Bradley Campbell: It was kind of funny that they called me up and said, hey, take care of that today.
• 28:32
  Jeff Cranson: Yeah Well, there is a tie here, because I think oftentimes those left-hand, left-lane drivers are on their phones.
• 28:40
  Bradley Campbell: Oh, yeah, yeah.
• 28:42
  Bradley Campbell: And specifically, I had a case once where I went after a speeder on 96 westbound and as I was trying to catch up to the speeder I had a left lane driver.
• 28:53
  Bradley Campbell: Just would not get out of my way so I could catch up to the speeder.
• 28:55
  Bradley Campbell: So I went around to the right and as soon as I got to it next to him on the right, I looked over and they were on their phone.
• 29:02
  Bradley Campbell: So I disregarded the speeder and stopped that person for the phone violation.
• 29:14
  Jeff Cranson: They're kind of surprised about that.
• 29:15
  Bradley Campbell: Yeah, so somebody got a break that would have been stopped for speeding Right exactly.
• 29:18
  Jeff Cranson: Well, I think you know it's a reminder that we need to up our efforts.
• 29:21
  Jeff Cranson: We work closely with your Office of Highway highway safety planning, which is housed within the michigan state police, but my office and and that office work on the messaging and try to make people aware.
• 29:32
  Jeff Cranson: And if people are honestly, this far into it, still ignorant of the law, then I guess we have to just keep at it and do what we can and hopefully it the numbers continue to come down yeah, that that's my thought is, um, you know, if, if we have the time for the enforcement out there?
• 29:50
  Bradley Campbell: you know, and honestly we're like everybody else, we run across staffing issues and things like that, so it makes it a little more difficult to get committed patrols out there, but when we can get out there, it's usually very productive.
• 30:04
  Jeff Cranson: Well, I'm going to include a photo in the show notes of a crash yesterday of a car that obviously never slowed down and had to have been going some outrageous speed.
• 30:14
  Jeff Cranson: That made its way under a truck and if you look at the photo you'll wonder how anybody walked away from that alive.
• 30:21
  Bradley Campbell: Yeah, in this 25 years the technology in automobiles is.
• 30:26
  Bradley Campbell: It's amazing Crashes that I took, say, back in 2000, when I was, you know, a young trooper, I look at now like the same type of crash and crashes back then.
• 30:40
  Bradley Campbell: They're very serious injuries or crashes that people just did not survive, and a lot of crashes, same type of crashes.
• 30:48
  Bradley Campbell: Today the automobile does a pretty good job of keeping these folks alive and minimal injuries.
• 30:55
  Jeff Cranson: So yeah, well, you know, I'm sure you're aware of one of the things we also found with the pandemic, and it hasn't completely curtailed.
• 31:03
  Jeff Cranson: Along with the heavy speeds were an increase in people not using their seat belts.
• 31:07
  Jeff Cranson: I still don't even know how, in a modern vehicle, you do that.
• 31:10
  Jeff Cranson: I suppose they probably, uh, do things to trick the system.
• 31:14
  Jeff Cranson: But are you, are you, finding any decline in that, or is that still a big issue?
• 31:20
  Bradley Campbell: no, I think it's pretty steady still, um, you know, depends, and on the freeway, I think it's, we see it less.
• 31:28
  Bradley Campbell: As far as seatbelt not being used, I should rephrase that that we see more seatbelt use on the expressway versus your county roads and M roads, and I don't know why that is.
• 31:40
  Bradley Campbell: I don't know if people have the mindset that they're going to be going a little bit faster, that they should probably wear their seatbelt, which is good.
• 31:45
  Bradley Campbell: But yeah, I think in county we see more seatbelts not being used.
• 31:52
  Jeff Cranson: Yeah, interesting.
• 31:53
  Jeff Cranson: Well, is there anything else you want to mention about the program and the innovative things that you're doing in these work zones to try to, you know, try to make both the drivers and the workers, uh, give them as safe as environment as possible.
• 32:07
  Bradley Campbell: And just you know that that we're going to be out there when, when we are working it and we're getting creative, we'll, you know, you might have a trooper kind of parked their patrol car in front of an MDOT uh work vehicle to kind of hide that patrol car and, you know, get somebody speeding through the construction zone.
• 32:24
  Bradley Campbell: Um, had some.
• 32:25
  Bradley Campbell: Really, looking at the speeds that we had, I think the highest we had was 75 and a 45, and that 45 is where workers are present.
• 32:35
  Bradley Campbell: So that to me is too fast in that area, especially with workers present.
• 32:43
  Bradley Campbell: So we'll address that when we come across it and just know that you know, for for the motorists out there, that if you get a citation in that construction zone um, especially in our area here that's, you know you're adding 25 to that, to that fine for a moving violation, and I don't know if you got free money to throw around, but I don't and you know 25 extra bucks on top of what you're already getting is, you know it's a little painful right now.
• 33:13
  Jeff Cranson: So yeah, no, I think, in terms of messaging some of the PSAs that OHSP has done over the years and I think one that targets the, you know, most common demographic for drunk driving, which is 20-something males, the one that talks about most common demographic for drunk driving, which is 20 something males, um, the one that talks about how much money that's going to cost and how long it takes me to make you know $5,000 or $10,000 or whatever.
• 33:35
  Jeff Cranson: I think, unfortunately, more than the idea that that person could die or they could kill somebody, it's that hit to the wallet that really gets them.
• 33:43
  Bradley Campbell: That's true, it is.
• 33:44
  Bradley Campbell: It's uh, and I I'd stopped somebody just for a simple non-moving violation I think it was window tint and I explained to them what it would cost.
• 33:53
  Bradley Campbell: And they're like oh you know, and right now I can't, just can't afford that, so I'll remove it immediately.
• 34:00
  Bradley Campbell: And if you think about a moving violation, and especially if your insurance gets a hold of that, that then it's quite possible your insurance rates will go up.
• 34:09
  Bradley Campbell: Yeah, absolutely, you want to avoid that, for sure.
• 34:13
  Jeff Cranson: Well, thank you, Sergeant, for taking time to talk about this and for what you're doing out there to try to keep all these contractors safe that are trying to rebuild the roads and make for a smoother ride.
• 34:25
  Bradley Campbell: Appreciate it, hey no problem, thanks for having me.
• 34:28
  Jeff Cranson: I'd like to thank you once more for tuning in to Talking Michigan Transportation.
• 34:31
  Jeff Cranson: You can find show notes and more on Apple Podcasts or Buzzsprout.
• 34:35
  Jeff Cranson: I also want to acknowledge the talented people who help make this a reality each week, starting with Randy Devler, who skillfully edits the audio, Jesse Ball, who proofs the content, Courtney Bates, who posts the podcast to various platforms, and Jackie Salinas, who transcribes the audio to make it accessible to all.