Remarkably, one of the officers recognized for issuing the greatest number of traffic penalties in the Lehigh Valley region in 2023 came from an unexpected source.
Upper Macungie Police Department
Police Sgt. Dathan Schlegel works at Upper Macungie, a community with roughly only 28,000 residents.
However, the Lehigh Valley DUI Highway Safety Taskforce, which recognized the officers with the greatest number of DUI arrests and traffic citations last month, states that Schlegel issued 2,106 traffic tickets in 2023. Compared to the other honorees, there is a significantly higher number of traffic citations.
Last year, Jeremy Clinton of the Bethlehem Police Department and Trooper Brian Bird of the Pennsylvania State Police in Belfast issued a combined total of 607 citations. Given the stark differences in the data, one might wonder how a township police officer could have received so many traffic tickets. Schlegel is in charge of the traffic unit, according to Upper Macungie Police Chief Mike Sitoski. This means that he goes out and looks for people who are speeding and acting in a dangerous manner.
According to Sitoski, "the goal of traffic enforcement is to make the road safer for all users." "It is an effort to try and lower the number of road fatalities and crashes." Lieutenant Cory Reader of the Upper Macungie Police Patrol, other police agencies lack the manpower or resources to assign officers to "proactive policing," which involves searching for infractions prior to receiving complaints. The reader stated, "It is my belief that the statistics just demonstrate that there are lawbreakers and those who break the law, and that individuals such as Sergeant Schlegel are out there searching for and locating such things."
Sitoski stated that the township's aggressive driving awards and support enable his department to have a dedicated traffic section. The reader also mentioned that a lot of people travel through and work in the township, meaning that a lot more people use its roads than live there.
Schlegel issued citations on 198 days in the previous year, or 10.6 a day on average. The Upper Macungie Police Department's administrators attested to the fact that certain offenders were issued repeated tickets. Schlegel issued over 800 speeding fines in the previous year, making it the most frequent type of citation. Traffic light infractions came in at number 364, and expired licenses came in at number 269, making traffic light violations the third most common citation type. In the previous year, Schlegel also issued roughly 200 parking penalties. One to forty-two violations were issued per workday, with September 14 and September 30 having the highest number of citations.
Instead, to aid in measuring speed, Upper Macungie police employ painted bars and lines on the side of the road. “The equipment we use now is a labor of love." Reader said. "It's tedious. It's quite honestly a pain to do what we do to enforce a speed limit." However, Reader stated that he believes that minimizing traffic violations is crucial to lowering the number of people killed and injured in auto accidents.
He is supported by the evidence, which indicates that "lowering traffic offenses may contribute significantly to crash and injury reduction," according to a 2014 National Library of Medicine research. "To be honest, I do not really think much about the people who are suggesting that the police should be hunting for genuine criminals or that they have better things to do," Reader remarked. “Well, those real drivers are killing people and themselves.”