Joe Moore knows Fairfax County residents spend a lot of time in traffic. For the past nine years, the county police officer has been trying to make them safer while on the roads, and his efforts appear to be paying off.
Moore was recently named the Virginia Association of Chiefs of Police’s traffic safety officer of the year. And, he says, the number of traffic fatalities is going down while the number of citations written is going up as cops crack down on distracted-driving offenses.
As a member of the department’s motorcycle squad, Moore has led educational and enforcement initiatives in what he sees as the one of the department’s most important divisions.
Traffic is “the number one complaint from citizens in this area,” he said.
But the overabundance of cars on the roads also means there’s plenty of unsafe behaviors, and that’s what Moore is trying to curb.
He has developed distracted-driving enforcement training for fellow officers, worked on county and nationwide “click it or ticket” campaigns and hit the streets to cite distracted motorists. Over the past year, he has helped lead a Fairfax police initiative that issues tickets to drivers who don’t “pay full time and attention” to the road, which can include behaviors like texting, talking on the phone and eating.
“It’s become so commonplace that while you’re behind the wheel, that you use that time to get other stuff done,” said Moore, who called distracted driving an “epidemic.”
And after these efforts, Moore wants to focus on the next step: finding out what works. He said he intends to plan a roundtable to get feedback from young drivers about ways the police department has tried to educate people about safe driving.
“I want to know what’s important to them, what works,” he said.
