MONTGOMERY COUNTY — Ohio State Highway Patrol troopers are urging drivers to exercise caution during Labor Day weekend.
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Labor Day weekend is the worst holiday for impaired driving.
News Center 7’s John Bedell rode along with a state trooper on Friday. He saw the work they do to keep you and your family safe.
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Lt. Dallas Root is actively patrolling highways to enforce traffic laws and ensure safety.
During a ride-along, he demonstrated the vigilance required to monitor driver behavior and enforce speed limits, particularly in construction zones.
“And he’s cutting in and out of traffic a little bit,” he said while on patrol.
One motorcyclist was clocked at 70 mph in a 55-mph zone near North Montgomery County, just before a construction area.
“The big concern right now: you’re coming into a construction zone at 70. We have increased traffic,” Lt. Root told the motorcyclists. “It puts you at risk because less people pay attention to the motorcycles to a smaller object.”
Moments later, Bedell said another driver caught Lt. Root’s attention in the 50-mile-an-hour construction zone near Stanley Avenue.
“Alright, that car’s 67. It just changed lanes and went in front of us,” he said. “And then changed lanes back to the left lane.”
Lt. Root pulled over the driver once they got out of the construction zone on I-75, closer to Benchwood Road.
“I couldn’t pull you over until we got up here because there’s no safe place to pull you over on the berm,” he told the driver.
Bedell said the driver left with a ticket.
“Then I watched you kind of cutting in and out of traffic, trying to jockey for position to keep your speed up,” said Lt. Root.
They ended up on U.S. 35 in Dayton.
Bedell reports that as Lt. Root clocked cars with a laser, he spotted one car going 76 mph and then 75 mph in a 55-mph speed limit.
They sped up to catch up to the driver for a traffic stop.
“I’m citing you for the lower speed. I checked you at 75,” said Lt. Root.
Bedell said this was a look at just a few hours of the work that state troopers will be putting in this weekend to slow drivers, and maybe even save a life.
He heard one driver say this about the ticket.
“Definitely, this is a wake-up call.”
Before he picked up Bedell and his photographer for the ride-along, Lt. Root pulled over a driver at 6 a.m. on Friday.
Root showed him a picture of a driver going 103 mph in a 65-mph speed limit. It was on Interstate 70 near Dayton International Airport.
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