State Troopers to Dress as Highway Maintenance Workers to Ticket Unsafe Drivers in Work Zones

By Yehudit Garmaise

   To encourage New Yorkers to show more caution when driving on highways, especially when they encounter construction, today, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo announced Operation Hardhat, in which state police will be dressed as highway maintenance workers to better identify and ticket motorists who disobey highway safety law.

   Among the violations for which state troopers will be on the lookout are: drivers who speed through work zones, disobey flagging personnel or traffic control devices, or do not move over a lane for the state’s emergency, construction, and maintenance vehicles that display red, white, blue, amber, or green lights.

     State troopers are also cracking down on drivers who are not wearing seatbelts, who are talking on cellphones and driving under the influence of alcohol.

  Since July, state troopers have already issued 1,779 tickets, a number that is 69.8% higher than the 1,048 tickets issued by state troopers throughout last year's Operation Hard Hat.

   Tickets’ fines are doubled for drivers who speed in work zones, and convictions of two or more speeding violations in work zones could result in drivers getting their licenses suspended.

   " Highway workers put their lives on the line so that the rest of us have access to safe roads and bridges,” said Mark J.F. Schroeder, the commission of the Department of Motor Vehicles and the chairman of the Governor's Traffic Safety Committee. “We owe it to them to drive safely in work zones so they can do their essential jobs and get back home to their families each night."