In the wake of two vehicular accidents on the St. Thomas waterfront this weekend and last that claimed a total of three lives, the Police Department is stepping up traffic enforcement throughout the territory, effective immediately.
Both vehicles went out of control and smashed into stationary objects. Both were traveling at an excessively high speed at the time, police and witnesses have said.
The police crackdown is "an effort to reduce excessive speeding on our highways," a departmental release stated.
Bruce Hamlin, acting police commissioner in the absence of Commissioner Franz Christian, said police vehicles "will occasionally display their emergency lights" to motorists who may be traveling too fast "as a warning and reminder to observe the legal limits."
Citations will be issued to those "intent on violating the law," he said.
The maximum legal speed limit in the St. Thomas/St. John district is 35 mph on open roads. In town areas it is 20 mph. Signs posted in areas such as school grounds specify lower limits. The same limits apply in the St. Croix district, except for those four-lane highway areas with a posted maximum of 55 mph.
"Slow down, save lives," Hamlin advised.