In a recent City of Miami Springs City Council Meeting, the Miami Springs Chief of Police, Armando Guzman, reported on speeding within the city. The Miami Springs Police Department deployed pole mounted radar devices throughout the community to gauge the amount of traffic and speeding at different areas of the community. Below you’ll find the speeding data at each of the locations:
500 SOUTH ROYAL POINCIANA BOULEVARD – 4/5/17 through 4/16/17
Total Number of Vehicles Recorded: 16,895
- POSTED SPEED LIMIT: 35MPH
- Percentage of Vehicles Speeding: 42% or 7,125 vehicles
- Average Speed of Speeders: 41 MPH
- Percentage of Vehicles Speeding 10 miles over the limit: 7% or 1,111 vehicles
- Highest Speed Recorded during the Testing Period: 90 MPH
1900 BLOCK OF LUDLAM DRIVE – 4/21/17 through 5/7/17
Total Number of Vehicles Recorded: 11,820
- POSTED SPEED LIMIT: 30MPH
- Percentage of Vehicles Speeding: 52% or 6,182 vehicles
- Average Speed of Speeders: 35 MPH
- Percentage of Vehicles Speeding 10 miles over the limit: 6% or 646 vehicles
- Highest Speed Recorded during the Testing Period: 87 MPH
400 BLOCK OF SOUTH DRIVE – 3/27/18 through 4/23/18
Total Number of Vehicles Recorded: 15,394
- POSTED SPEED LIMIT: 30MPH
- Percentage of Vehicles Speeding: 47% or 7,287 vehicles
- Average Speed of Speeders: 35 MPH
- Percentage of Vehicles Speeding 10 miles over the limit: 4% or 678 vehicles
- Highest Speed Recorded during the Testing Period: 98 MPH
100 BLOCK OF HUNTING LODGE DRIVE – 4/26/18 through 5/9/18
Total Number of Vehicles Recorded: 7,117
- POSTED SPEED LIMIT: 30MPH
- Percentage of Vehicles Speeding: 48% or 3.388 vehicles
- Average Speed of Speeders: 35 MPH
- Percentage of Vehicles Speeding 10 miles over the limit: 4% or 265 vehicles
- Highest Speed Recorded during the Testing Period: 72 MPH
Chief Guzman also reported on the Year over Year Comparison (2017 vs 2016) of violations, citations, arrests, traffic stops, and calls for service. Miami Springs Police had issued a 57% increase in traffic violations last year:
- TRAFFIC VIOLATION: UP 57% IN 2017
- Traffic Violations in 2017: 4,703
- Traffic Violations in 2016: 2,995
Miami Springs Police also had a significant increase in the number of arrests last year, more than doubling the prior year’s numbers:
- ARRESTS: UP 66% IN 2017
- 445 Arrests in 2017
- 268 arrests in 2016
In addition to the increases in Traffic Violations and Arrests by the Miami Springs Police Department, the Department also handled a 40% increase in Service Calls year over year despite having virtually the same man-power year over year.
- CALLS FOR SERVICE: UP 40% IN 2017
- 2017 Calls for Service: 22,252
- 2016 Calls for Service: 15,946
EDITORIAL: We thank Police Chief Guzman and the Miami Springs Police Department for keeping our community safe and doing more with the same amount of staffing. However, as residents we cannot accept the numbers. A 40% increase in calls last year is not likely to dwindle this year as new hotels on 36 street come online. That’s more people occupying our city and requesting assistance from our police force. The economy is strong and tourism and traffic is increasing. Again, that’s a stress to our men and women in blue. It’s time to think about increasing the number of police officers.
Furthermore, we would not accept random stray shootings happening on our streets. How can anyone accept reckless drivers going in excess of 70, 80, and even 90 miles per hour on 30mph residential roads? That is a deadly dangerous speed for residential roads and it’s just not acceptable. Those speeds can and do kill. And before you dismiss that nothing happens in Miami Springs, may I remind everyone that a young man died on Westward and hurt his two passengers when he allegedly lost control of a speeding BMW in March of last year.
What’s worse is that the extreme speeding was caught in just a small sampling of time on just a couple of roads. How many extreme speeders do we have on all the other streets that were not recorded or sampled? As such, we highly encourage the city to take Council Woman Maria Mitchell’s suggestion to add traffic calming to the city seriously. Whether we add speed bumps or traffic circles or other solutions, we need to solve the excess speeding once and for all. Traffic calming is also a one time investment that can last for decades. It gets the result of lowering speeds without taxing police resources even further.
As always, we welcome your commentary and feedback.
Sincerely,
Nestor Suarez
Publisher
MiamiSprings.com
Nestor@MiamiSprings.com
