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Crime & Safety

Winter Weather Still Causing Lakeville Drivers Trouble

Lakeville police officer who made the most DUI arrests in 2010 starts 2011 off strong.

After all the significant snow storms that we have had this year, you would think motorists would have acclimated their driving skills to compensate for winter road conditions by now, but Tuesday morning, a meager two-inch snowfall seemed to catch a lot of drivers off guard.

It may have been that many motorists this winter have become so used to heavy snowfalls that they underestimated the impact that two inches of snow mixed with a little falling sleet can have on a 20 degree roadway surface.

Sgt. Jim Puncochar and Sgt. Jason Polinski—the two watch patrol supervisors on Tuesday morning—reported that during the morning rush hour, officers responded to 13 reports of vehicles crashing, sliding off the roadways, or sliding off the road and flipping over. Fortunately, none of the crashes appeared to involve serious injuries, but traffic was moving very slowly most of the morning.

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The two-lane county roads with 55 MPH speed limits seemed to pose the most problems for drivers as they looked deceptively dry where the wind had blown the snow off the roadway, while they were actually icy and slick.

Right around 7:15 a.m., Officer Bob Doerfler and Polinski didn’t have far to respond to a crash—along side the Police Station on Dodd Boulevard. The crash occurred when a pickup truck traveling down Dodd lost control and slid off the roadway and rolled over. The car following the truck also slid off the roadway, narrowly missing the rolled over truck. Due to icy road conditions, it took almost an hour to get the crash scene cleared. Even though the pickup was damaged, no one was injured in the crash.

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Just 65 days until the first day of spring.

By the numbers:

Activity for the week of Jan. 4 through Jan. 11:

Lakeville Police responded to 18 traffic crashes, 30 alarms, 15 animal calls, 30 medical emergencies, 9 thefts, and 170 traffic stops.

Quick start made in saving lives in 2011:

According to the Minnesota Department of Public Safety, impaired driving accounts for an estimated 140 traffic deaths and an estimated 400 serious injuries to motorists each year across the State of Minnesota. Impaired drivers pose a great threat on the roadway to the safety of the motoring public.

Officer Adam Stier not only made the most DUI arrests for the department in 2010 with a remarkable 118 DUI arrests, but also started the New Year out with the first DUI arrest for the department in 2011.

Stier normally works the overnight shift and was working on New Year’s Eve, when shortly after midnight he observed a vehicle commit a moving traffic violation. Stier stopped the vehicle for the violation and as he spoke with the driver, he observed that the driver showed signs of intoxication. The driver failed a road-side sobriety test and was arrested by Stier for DUI. A subsequent breath test indicated that the driver was well over the legal limit for intoxication.

Dumb criminal of the week:

Officer Nic Stevens was called to a residence to investigate a “911 hang up call” last week. When Stevens spoke with the residents, who were a boyfriend and girlfriend, he learned that they had called 911 because they were involved in an argument.

The boyfriend explained that the argument started when the girlfriend came home and told him that she had crashed his truck. The girlfriend explained to Stevens that she had lost control of the vehicle and slid off the roadway into a parked car in a driveway and then continued on home without stopping. Stevens located the parked car that had been struck some distance away and notified the owner of the damaged vehicle. Stevens also cited the girlfriend for leaving the scene of a crash and other traffic violations.

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