APD speeding citations down 37%
May sees biggest decline in citations by almost 400
UPDATED 11:21 AM MDT Jul 25, 2016
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. —Albuquerque police are issuing far fewer speeding tickets this year compared with last.
RELATEDAccording to numbers from New Mexico's Administrative Office of the Courts, Albuquerque police issued about 3,000 tickets between January and May 2015. Between the first five months of this year, only about 1,900 have been issued.
That's down about 37 percent.
The data also shows there are fewer tickets being written every month this year than last.
The most startling figure is the comparison between May 2015 to May 2016. Data shows 390 fewer tickets were written in May this year. APD officials said that month, officers were tied up by eight fatal crashes and helped escort presidential hopefuls through the city.
APD officials said the significant drop in speeding citations could also stem from the department only having nine officers patrolling the roads, as compared with the 24 officers it had last year.
The department has been struggling with a shortage for years.
Officer Tanner Tixier said the department would ideally like to have about 510 officers in the field but right now, there's only about 410.
Tixier said when the traffic unit is tied up, there is no one else to fill the officers' shoes.
"We didn't have the bodies to take out of the field or out of investigations division to fill the motors division," he said.
Department officials said they are actively recruiting. They hope to fill spots on the traffic unit soon because they don't just catch speeders, they help make streets safe.
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