LEAD FOOTERS, BEWARE -- HIGHWAY PATROL IS CRACKING DOWN ON SOUTH BAY SPEEDERS

HIGHWAY PATROL IS CRACKING DOWN ON SOUTH BAY LEAD FOOTERS
By Gary Richards
Mercury News

The California Highway Patrol is cracking down on speeders at a pace never seen before in the South Bay, issuing nearly 1,400 tickets last month. At that rate, the CHP would quadruple the number of tickets issued last year.

A newly created five-trooper team is swarming a stretch of road every weekday, sometimes nabbing speeders twice on the same trip, and this isn't just some temporary tactic.

The goal is to make the South Bay an area where flying down a freeway at 80 to 90 mph is not tolerated. Despite severe staffing shortages, CHP commanders in San Jose are determined to change a disturbing fact: Speeding is the main cause of two out of three highway deaths in the state.

``What we have out there is in essence a free-for-all,'' Lt. Spencer Boyce, one of the CHP bosses behind the change in strategy, said. ``People figure if the speed limit is 65, then they can do 85. The reality is that speed kills. It's that simple, and we want to change that.''

The early returns are impressive. The new unit issued 1,744 tickets in January -- 1,369 for speeding with the remainder mainly going to solo drivers cheating in the carpool lane or not wearing seat belts. The group is on pace to issue more than 16,000 speeding tickets this year. Last year, the entire San Jose division gave out 4,155 tickets for excessive speed.

Tuesday, Lisa Basili was one of the unlucky ones. Officer Jason Morton clocked her at 83 mph on southbound Interstate 680 near Capitol Avenue.

``God, don't write me a ticket,'' pleaded Basili, who was returning to college in Monterey in her 1994 Buick with 125,000 miles on it. ``I'm sorry. I won't do it again. Just give me a warning. I'm driving a Buick. Please.''

No mercy, for her or anyone else, on this day.

Morton and four others no longer are assigned to patrol a particular highway by themselves. Instead, they are teamed up to saturate one South Bay freeway or expressway each weekday as part of the new crew, headed by Sgt. Bob Buckles.

They sometimes work together, one officer radioing another farther down the highway with four on motorcycles and one in a patrol car. Other times they stay on the same highway, but go after scofflaws separately. Some motorists see a trooper on the shoulder busy writing a ticket and zoom off, thinking the officer is too busy and they'll never see another for miles, a reasonable assumption in the past.

Surprise. ``We've given a person a ticket and three minutes later they are stopped again,'' officer Lance Hedrick said. ``They don't think there's going to be more than one of us out here. Certainly not five of us.''

Most crackdowns in the past have needed special funding or overtime pay. When that money ran out, enforcement often eased or stopped.

But not this crackdown. Officers' main duty is looking for speeders. No accidents to worry about, road rage incidents to deal with or other duties that often tie up a traffic officer.

Each day Sgt. Buckles picks a road to target. Highway 101 on Monday, Interstate 680 on Tuesday. Highway 85 on Wednesday. A different road today. Sometimes in the morning, sometimes late afternoon. Keep 'em guessing.

``It is a target rich environment,'' said Lt. Boyce. ``It's not like we have to wait 30 minutes to get somebody speeding.''

Try maybe three seconds. Tuesday around lunchtime, Morton pulled his black and white cruiser into the median on I-680 before Landess Avenue and tracked northbound traffic with his Lidar unit, which shoots a narrow laser beam at its target and can accurately pick out a speeder more than a half mile away.

``This won't be long,'' he told the Mercury News reporter.

Within four seconds, he jumped back in, hitting the accelerator hard to catch up to a gray Honda Accord flying by at 80 mph. It was Stacey Nixon's unlucky day.

The 37-year-old San Jose woman grumbled about her fate.

``I think this is very unfair,'' she said, her tiny pooch Sammy wagging his tail in the back seat. ``There are so many other terrible things they can get you for. I don't think speeding is that big a problem. People go a lot faster.''

Oh my, do they. Up next, Mike Nguyen, 38, of San Jose who was late for work at a Pleasanton restaurant. Speed: 86 mph.

Want faster? Try Nicole Young of San Jose -- 90 mph near Jacklin Road. That's a minimum fine of $350.

``People get hurt when they drive too fast,'' she said with a sigh. ``Well, 90 is pretty fast. I don't think I was driving unsafely, but it's a healthy reminder. I'm guilty.''

Rhianna Vicini, 84 mph. Sung So, 80 mph. The five cops wrote 116 tickets, the highest number of any day so far in the new crackdown.

Allen Hauptman of San Jose was tickled to see speeders and carpool cheaters being ticketed on San Tomas Expressway recently.

``What pleases me the most is that the enforcement effort isn't just a one or two patrol-person effort,'' he wrote in an e-mail. ``Nope. These scofflaws are being pounced upon by a team of four to six motorcycle officers.''

Ditto, said Pamela Yanne of Saratoga after the CHP flooded Highway 85 between Almaden Expressway and Union Avenue two weeks ago.

The CHP crew, she said, made drivers behave better, and the commute was ``a welcome sight to the usual stop-and-go, watching cheaters dart in and out of the carpool lane and speeders weaving through traffic.''

For years, motorists have lamented the absence of heavy patrols on state highways and expressways, for good reasons. The CHP's total of 66 patrol officers in its San Jose branch is down from 85 three years ago and from 119 in 1969. Factor in those assigned for special duties from homeland security to organized crime units, and there are 1,000 fewer cops cruising state freeways than in 1970.

Ten new cadets may head to the South Bay later this year, but local commanders said they can't wait for them.

``We need to be proactive,'' Boyce said. ``We can't just react to what is going on.''

The San Jose division is the first to employ the special unit. Don't be surprised if more follow suit, said CHP spokesman Mike Wright.

``You give an officer no beat accountability and tell them to go after speeders,'' Wright said, ``and it's like putting them in a candy store.''