GRANITE QUARRY — The Granite Quarry-Faith Joint Police Authority has partnered with almost every other law enforcement agency in Rowan County on a future traffic enforcement project throughout both Faith and Granite Quarry.

Granite Quarry-Faith Police Chief Todd Taylor said that he did not want to say exactly when and where the project would be happening in the towns, but that the departments would be focusing on areas that have often been the subject of speeding complaints, where there have been multiple traffic crashes and areas that the department’s data indicated were problem areas. He also said that the project would be happening this week.

“I want this to be a warning to drivers that speed or ignore traffic laws to pay attention,” said Taylor.

Every law enforcement agency in Rowan County other than the Landis Police Department has offered their assistance, said Taylor, and will have officers in the towns during the project. The assistance will allow the department to cover as much area during the short window the Granite Quarry-Faith Joint Police Authority will have. Taylor said that the project will likely last from mid-morning to late-evening.

Taylor said that the town has done speed enforcement projects before, but that he wanted residents of the two towns to be aware of the upcoming project so that people were not concerned or confused by the amount of out-of-town officers performing traffic stops or other activities around the area.

By the end of the project, Taylor said that the department will have covered almost all of the area inside of both municipalities.

Part of the project will also include the collecting of more data on the traffic patterns in the town, in order to inform future traffic enforcement, through the usage of the department’s radar speed sign. The sign can be put into stealth mode, said Taylor, which changes it so that it does not display the speed of passing vehicles but still records the data.

The local traffic enforcement program comes on a recent campaign of the N.C. Governor’s Highway Safety Program entitled “Speed Wrecks Lives,” which concluded last week. That campaign increased patrols in all 100 counties in the state and targeted drivers exceeding the speed limit.

The statewide program was part of the Vision Zero initiative, which aims to reduce and eventually eliminate traffic fatalities and severe injuries while increasing safe and equitable mobility for everyone. Vision Zero’s website states that the initiative acknowledges that the prevention of road deaths is a shared responsibility, “meaning designers of the transportation system (i.e. planners, engineers, public health professionals, law enforcement and elected officials) must work collaboratively to ensure a safe system by addressing the root causes and inequities in traffic deaths.”