EAST LANSING, Mich. — The East Lansing Police Department (ELPD) has launched a Traffic Safety Initiative, specifically focusing enforcement efforts on the major intersections in the City of East Lansing where accidents frequently occur.
In reviewing crash statistics over the past four years, ELPD leadership has determined that multiple intersections within the City have some of the highest crash occurrences in the entire county. The Grand River-Hagadorn, Mt Hope-Hagadorn and Coolidge-Lake Lansing intersections have ranked in the top 20 intersections in Ingham County for traffic accidents since 2012. The Grand River-Hagadorn intersection had the highest number of accidents in the entire county in 2013 and 2015.
As part of the new initiative, ELPD officers will be focusing their traffic enforcement efforts in and around the Grand River-Hagadorn, Mt Hope-Hagadorn and Coolidge-Lake Lansing intersections as well as other intersections with high occurrences of traffic accidents.
"It just makes sense to focus our enforcement efforts near the intersections where the most violations occur. Many of these violations lead to accidents,” said East Lansing Police Chief Jeff Murphy. “The goal is to reduce the amount of traffic accidents over the long haul. We hope our efforts will prevent a tragedy from happening.”
ELPD’s Traffic Safety Initiative will primarily be implemented with officers during routine patrol shifts, but occasional overtime is planned. Some of the other intersections in East Lansing with high crash rates include the Grand River-Collingwood, Lake Lansing-West, Lake Lansing-Harrison, Grand River-Harrison and Abbot-Lake Lansing intersections.
ELPD’s initiative began Monday, Feb. 22 and will run indefinitely.