If you live or work in Marana, you may notice more officers out this week looking for speeders.
The Marana Police Department received a grant to focus more attention on speeding. They will have more officers in school zones and along Camino de Manana, a road that's considered a big problem.
"The need to reduce speed here, it's huge," said Marana Traffic Officer Brad Clifford.
He says this is the third time they have deployed a special enforcement detail on Camino de Manana, that runs in between Twin Peaks and Tangerine.
"It seems like we'll get up here and we'll get the word out and it will slow down and then as time goes by, it picks back up again," said Clifford.
The posted speed limit is 35 mph. Clifford says they have done traffic studies along Camino de Manana and found that the average speed during a seven day period was 48 mph.
"We've actually recorded speeds in excess of 70 miles an hour," he said. "That's certainly troubling. That's an extremely dangerous speed when you're looking at this roadway being a narrow two lane roadway with soft shoulders."
The department received a $40,000 grant this fiscal year from the Governors Office of Highway Safety to increase officers in problem areas.
During the last three deployments using this grant money, officers gave out 176 warnings compared to 168 tickets.
During Monday's enforcement, Clifford says Marana Police handed out nine speeding tickets, seven tickets for other violations and gave out 18 warnings. They also made one criminal traffic arrest.
"We're not out here to see how many tickets to issue," said Clifford. "We're really trying to promote traffic safety. Fortunately we haven't had any major collisions on this road and I want to keep that from happening."
The Marana Police Department plans to continue these deployments on a monthly basis until about July.
