ODESSA, Texas — The roads of West Texas are getting worse and time after time officers say the same thing is causing the crashes.
“We are responding to these crashes on a regular basis right now where somebody gets killed or they get seriously hurt," said Odessa Police Department Public Information Officer Steve LeSueur. "And then we do a thorough investigation and then we come to the conclusion that speed was a factor.”
Reckless driving is a class B misdemeanor with serious legal consequences, that of which only get worse if that reckless driving results in a crash.
“You can lose your driver's license, your insurance rates can go up," LeSueur said. "But you can be arrested if you are traveling in excess of 20 miles over the posted speed limit.”
This is where OPD's "Reckless 20 Initiative" comes in. The initiative states that if a driver goes 20 miles per hour over the posted speed limit, they can be prosecuted.
“But now, due to the fact that we've had all these recent incidents, I think we're going to be a lot more aggressive in enforcing it, specifically our traffic unit," LeSueur said.
The initiative has been around for quite some time and while officers have usually used their own discretion during stops, now they will have a much more solid criteria for a stop.
Driving excessively fast is never worth a life and that is the mindset OPD is hoping to instill with this initiative.
"The bottom line is that we're not our goal is not to make as many arrests as we can or issues many citations," LeSueur said. "Our goal is to save lives and to simply prevent people from being seriously hurt."
So next time you are on the way to your destination, remember, if you don't speed you have nothing to worry about.