Medford, Ore. — A Jackson County Justice of the Peace wants drivers to be safer on Oregon roads. He’s concerned that a decrease in traffic enforcement is leading to an increase in traffic fatalities because speed and other traffic violations are being enforced less.
Most notably, that the Jackson County traffic enforcement team was cut by half at the end of last year.
“The major cause of deaths for our children 5 to 24 or 35 is traffic crashes,” Joe Charter says, “it’s just a matter of presence will often times deter bad conduct.”
When the Justice Court was established in 2004, there were 45 traffic fatalities, those numbers have since largely decreased to numbers below 20. But according to Charter, for the first half of 2016, there have already been 16 traffic fatalities.
© 2024 KOBI-TV NBC5. All rights reserved unless otherwise stated.