The Sarasota County Sheriff’s Office (SCSO) is pleased to announce its participation in the Operation Southern Slow Down campaign between July 17-21.
The SCSO traffic unit will be working with other law enforcement agencies within the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s (NHTSA) Region 4, which includes Florida, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, and Tennessee. Annually, during the third week of July, the campaign focuses on speed enforcement and education, with the intent of reducing crashes and saving lives.
The SCSO and the state of Florida have set the goal to enhance our commitment to safety by adopting a holistic approach that increasingly focuses on actions to modify driver behavior. Traffic and crash data has been gathered and compiled to provide insight into how we can best work with partners to plan and implement education, enforcement, engineering, and other initiatives that will collectively generate sustained safety improvement and move our state toward zero traffic fatalities and serious injuries.
Sarasota County Sheriff Kurt A. Hoffman has a long record of working to improve traffic issues in the community through innovative and targeted campaigns against speeding and reckless driving. “Protecting our citizens is always our priority,” said Sheriff Hoffman. “Traffic accidents can be reduced and prevented through education and awareness. With campaigns like Operation Southern Slow Down, that is what we hope to accomplish.”
Operation Southern Slow Down combines effort and ideas among the five states in Region 4 focusing on both education and visibility. Soon, along major thoroughfares, citizens will see their local sheriffs featured on billboards cautioning drivers to slow down and drive defensively to avoid citations and prevent accidents.