February 9, 2024
Dear Neighbors:
Residents across the city continue to express serious safety concerns about speeding, reckless driving, and failure to obey traffic signals.
For example, we placed one of our speed tracking signs on Amsterdam Road from 01/22/2024 through 01/28/2024 and found that out of 7,138 vehicles tracked during that time, 4,971, or roughly 70% of them, were exceeding the posted 25 mile per hour speed limit. Several exceeded the posted speed limit by as much as 15 MPH in this residential area that is heavily traveled by pedestrians.
To help curb these issues and to ensure the safety of our community, I have asked the Fort Wright Police Department to increase traffic enforcement activities and to issue citations to all offenders, residents and non-residents alike. You can expect to see increased police enforcement activities throughout the city for the near future.
As the enforcement initiative begins, I want to dispel a common misconception about traffic fines and revenue generated for the city as a result. Fines for Kentucky Moving Traffic Citations vary by violation and are pre-payable to the state in lieu of going to court. Moving violations include but are not limited to speeding, disregarding a compulsory turn lane, stop sign violations, no seat belt, or not using a child restraint device. Only an exceedingly small percentage of the fees associated with a citation are returned to the local community and this is for the express purpose of aid in covering the cost of DUI enforcement. For reference, our 13 member Police Department received 9,329 calls for service and wrote 146 traffic related citations last fiscal year. We received approximately $9,500 in Law Enforcement Fee Revenues. Our entire Police Department’s budget is $2,062,333.35. The bottom line is that traffic violations do not generate any meaningful revenue for the city.
To be clear, this increased enforcement initiative is purely the result of a call for increased traffic enforcement from your neighbors with the sole objective of making our community safer.
I respectfully request that everyone remember our community motto "Neighbors Helping Neighbors" and take a moment to consider and respect your neighbors’ concerns. Please focus on the safety of your family, your neighbors, and the many visitors we have in our community, and please slow down, stop for stop signs, and follow our other traffic laws whenever operating a vehicle within the Fort Wright city limits.
Those who do not comply may be the subject of costly enforcement actions.
Please reach out with any questions or concerns.
Best Regards,
Dave Hatter
Mayor, City of Fort Wright