Enforcement and response related to traffic management and to vehicle crimes have long been a large part of law enforcement (LE) as a whole. Modern phenomena are shaping those LE activities in unprecedented ways.

According to the National Safety Council, about 40,000 people died in the United States from vehicle crashes in 2016, a 14 percent increase over 2014, marking the highest two-year spike since 1964.¹ Distracted driving, which often results from motorists operating vehicles while using smartphones, is a primary reason for the dramatic increase. The same year, FBI data show that motor vehicle thefts occurred at a rate of 236.9 per 100,000 people, a 6.6 percent rise over 2015.²

Moreover, laws and regulations are complex, vary by state, and can often be slow to adapt to such societal trends, making enforcement difficult. An ongoing officer shortage, particularly in the United States, exacerbates this issue.³

The good news for traffic patrols is a host of vendors are producing hardware and software products that can help officers and agencies work smarter when it comes to vehicles and traffic.

“There are fewer police officers today than there were 10 or 15 years ago, and the ones today have to do more reports,” said Salman Anwar, director of strategic alliance for LexisNexis Risk Solutions in Alpharetta, Georgia. “Specialized units have disappeared. Everyone is asked to do traffic enforcement, so we definitely are working to help.”⁴

According to the National Safety Council, about 40,000 people died in the United States from vehicle crashes in 2016.

Software

Eimpound has approximately 2,000 law enforcement and tow company users, and it does so at no cost to them. The system is a leader in connecting vehicles and VIN data with tow providers, police, and other government agencies. The ultimate goal is reconnecting lien holders with their vehicles as quickly and cost-effectively as possible, creating efficiencies for all parties and minimizing the chance of theft. The odds of modern theft methods like “title washing” increase for impounded vehicles and continue to go up the longer a vehicle remains in that state.

“Vehicle crimes have evolved over the years,” said Dennis Frias, director of law enforcement relations. “No weapons are needed any more. Crimes are surpassing past rates of vehicle theft activity. They use loopholes or weaknesses in the DMV systems to take the true owner of the vehicle off the title and fraudulently have a lien sale process.”⁵

Eimpound and its paperless workflow saves about 17 days of wait time per vehicle compared with traditional processes.

“It speeds everything up, arranging to have the vehicle picked up in two days instead of two weeks,” said Eimpound President Jack Bernstein. “When a car is impounded, it enters this gray area. You want to get it out quickly, and you can do it paperlessly.”⁶

Crash Reconstruction

LexisNexis Risk Solutions offers a raft of options for traffic enforcement, including digital citation and its Coplogic Crash Reporting Solutions.

“This reduces traffic crashes,” Anwar said. “The citation takes a long time to write, and we reduce the time it takes to clear a traffic stop by 50 percent. We wanted it to have the least amount of keystrokes to complete.”

Plenty of solutions take duties off of an officer’s plate, thus adding time back into a daily routine. One of those is 4N6XPRT Systems, a La Mesa, California, firm with a suite of accident reconstruction and investigation software products. Depending on the software and the needs, officers can input raw crash information and quickly receive a variety of reports and meaningful data.

“It provides data that’s important to do an accident investigation reconstruction,” said Daniel Vomhof III, an accident reconstructionist with the company. “We’ll do those calculations for the officer. It takes the grunt and grind out of it… From the time you pull up the program to the time you have your printouts is maybe five minutes.”⁷

Hardware

Doing the job safely and quickly also requires the right hardware for the many traffic- and vehicle crime–related LE activities officers are faced with on patrol.

Tint Meters

Traffic enforcement can offer a reminder that even small things are important. Window tinting can be one such thing. Laws vary greatly by geography but the Tint Meter from Scituate, Massachusetts-based Laser Labs Inc. can help officers enforce those laws no matter the location, and help improve officer safety in the process.

“You’re walking up to a car and you can’t see who’s in it,” said Ed Marcin, CEO and chairman of the board of Laser Labs. “Traffic stops are high risk because you’re complacent. It’s usually easy, but it’s harder to know if they’re behind a tinted window. Oftentimes they want to hide and who do they want to hide from? Usually it’s law enforcement.”⁸

It’s easy to use in the field and in court, with the main criteria behind its construction, Marcin said, being that “it had to be foolproof, so the officer could just worry about being an operator.”

Flares

Foolproof is the name of the game when working with PowerFlare, the electric flare that has been dropped from 10,000 feet to test its durability. It survived, and will keep on kicking for 25–30 hours of use on one battery.

“You can feel the ruggedness of it,” said John Dunning, president of the PowerFlare distribution center in Campbell, California, which makes the Powerflare. “The others can feel like a toy. You can feel the rubber. But this has heft to it.”⁹

Radar

MPH Industries manufactures more than a dozen products for traffic enforcement and management purposes, and does it all from its hometown of Owensboro, Kentucky. According to company estimates, MPH has the lowest repair rates in the industry. The Sure Shot radar enforcement device, which has a touchscreen and can record up to 500 shots, is one of the company’s more popular products.

“All of our components and equipment are made in Kentucky. We have a very good service department,” said Eric Ruud, the MPH national sales manager. “Our customer satisfaction is at the forefront of the industry.”¹⁰

The Gen 1 Radar Recorder from JAMAR Technologies in Hatfield, Pennsylvania, can easily be set up within five minutes.

“We’ve always had a covert aspect, and that’s a very good benefit to police,” said sales engineer Rich Cole. “If you put up a speed sign, that has its benefits, but if you want to count car speed at that time, they’ve already slowed down. Having the recorder out there for one or two weeks gives an advantage.”¹¹  

Spikes

Traffic spikes might not be an every day need for police, but when they are needed, they are usually needed on short notice. Some companies offer options that help officers do just that.

Based in Chandler, Arizona, Pacific Scientific Energetic Materials Company developed NightHawk, a spike system that goes beyond the traditional hand-deployed spike method. An officer can use a push-button system from up to 100 feet away to release the spikes up to 15 feet across. After use, another press of a button reels the system back in.

“We saw a need that every year there’s a couple of officers who are hurt or killed, or someone else is hurt or killed, by throwing a manual stick,” said Bryan Stacey, the company’s market segment manager. “So we saw an opportunity to make it safer.”¹²

The Phantom Spike from End-X Systems, headquartered in Gilbert, Arizona, is a spike produced by a smaller manufacturer, but one its designers say can help prevent injury to officer and citizen—and at a lower price to boot. Its spikes are encased in a special design that makes an unintentional injury nearly impossible, without compromising its effectiveness in the field.

“We’re in the spike business. The 30-inch spike is much easier to handle with a little smaller size,” said company president Len Bettendorf. “My goal is to make a safer system. There are no exposed spikes to hit. You’re not going to get stuck with a spike just by handling it.”¹³

With its line-and-reel deployment system, the PT700 provides 7.5 feet of lane coverage. Bettendorf also notes that the Phantom Spike and all the company’s models cost 20 percent lower than those of larger companies. Phantom Spike also offers free tactical training for customers.

Video Solutions

Video technologies, including license plate recognition (LPR) systems, are a critical step in many investigations. Having the right solution in the right place at the right time can be indispensible.

Vigilant Solutions, based in Livermore, California, a leader in the field, offers LPR technology. Their LPR solutions have existed nearly as long as LPR itself, and now feature a cloud-based structure that allows for greater efficiency and cost-effectiveness.

“We’re the first to use LPR in the cloud,” said Tom Joyce, Vigilant’s vice president of business solutions. “There is lots of flexibility in cost savings. [Without the cloud] you need rack space and IT infrastructure. We take all of that out of their hands. Everything is URL-based on the back end, just username and password is all you need. It’s simple and takes a lot off your plate.”¹⁴

CrimeEye by Total Recall Corporation, a Suffern, New York, company, is a line of public safety video systems that can be deployed in several ways. In a fixed or mobile position in a temporary or permanent setting, Crime Eye captures footage with a one- or two-camera setup and can capture license plates as well.

“If people wanted to read license plates [in the past], they had to monitor them with a fixed camera. Our solutions can be mobile and provide a trail of activity,” said Jordan Heilweil, president of sales for Total Recall Corporation. “It allows them to gain actionable intelligence.”¹⁵

Notes:

¹National Safety Council, “Police Reports Don’t Capture the Real Reasons Drivers Crash,” 2016.

²Federal Bureau of Investigation, “Motor Vehicle Theft: Overview,” in Crime in the United States, 2016.

³Jon Walters, “Police Officer Recruiting & Hiring: The Challenges Have Never Been Greater,” Police Chief 85 (July 2018): 68–71.

⁴Salman Anwar (director, strategic alli-ances, LexisNexis Risk Solutions), telephone interview, June 2018.

⁵Dennis Frias, (director, law enforcement relations, Eimpound), telephone interview, June 11, 2018.

⁶Jack Bernstein (president, Eimpound), telephone interview, June 11, 2018.

⁷Daniel Vomhof (accident reconstruc-tionist, 4N6XPRT Systems), telephone inter-view, June 8, 2018.

⁸Ed Marcin (chief executive officer and chairman, Laser Labs Inc.), telephone interview, June 11, 2018.

⁹John Dunning (president, PowerFlare distribution center, Campbell, CA), telephone interview, June 12, 2018.

¹⁰Eric Ruud (national sales manager, MPH Industries), telephone interview, June 12, 2018.

¹¹Rich Cole (sales engineer, JAMAR Technologies), phone interview, June 8, 2018.

¹²Bryan Stacey (market segment manager, Pacific Scientific Energetic Materials Company), telephone interview, June 11, 2018.

¹³Len Bettendorf (president, End-X Systems), telephone interview, June 11, 2018.

¹⁴Tom Joyce (vice president, business solutions, Vigilant Solutions), telephone interview, June 15, 2018.

¹⁵Jordan Heilweil (president of sales, Total Recall Corporation), telephone interview, June 13, 2018.