‘It’s a chronic problem:’ Lake Mary police ticketing speeders on I-4 during stay-at-home order

Less traffic on the roads reason behind more speeders, police say

LAKE MARY, Fla. – The Lake Mary Police Department said with less traffic on the road due to the state's stay at home order, officers are seeing more drivers speeding.

News 6 spent an hour with the LMPD traffic enforcement division on Wednesday. During that time, eight vehicles were pulled over for driving over the posted speed limit.

Sgt. Michelle Hernandez stood on the pedestrian bridge over the interstate with her radar gun and caught drivers speeding. She alerted her officers on the ground about the violators.

"86, middle lane, black SUV, going under the bridge now," Hernandez said over the agency's radio.

News 6 crews wore masks as they rode along with Police Officer First Class Michelle Yielding. Yielding said she is catching drivers going more than 25 miles over the posted speed limit.

"The fastest one we've gotten so far on here is 104," Yielding said.

Yielding pulled over a driver in a white SUV who police said was driving 86 miles per hour. The posted speed limit along the stretch of I-4 where the traffic enforcement operation was being conducted is 65 miles per hour.

Yielding said the driver was issued a $281 ticket.

She believes more people are speeding because there is less traffic on the roads.

"The traffic is very minimal so therefore people think it's just an open roadway and treat it like a raceway," Yielding said.

Officer Zach Hudson said the speeding problems spiked after Gov. Ron DeSantis signed the stay at home order at the beginning of the month.

He said the agency is out everyday enforcing traffic along the interstate. Hudson added speeders are putting other drivers’ lives in danger.

"Speed kills and when you have people that are doing over 100 miles an hour, somebody is going to get themselves hurt or killed," Hudson said.

Police said they hope speeding on the interstate won’t be as big of a problem once the state reopens.

"I think it will continue this way until things get back to normal," Yielding said.

But until then Hudson said they are keeping an eye out for violators.

“It’s a chronic problem right now and we’re doing everything we can do to put a stop to that,” Hudson said. “Once traffic increases, I would imagine we’ll get back to a normalized traffic problem. But ultimately this continues to be a problem on this road.”


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