Soon after Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection Commissioner Ronnell Higgins held a press conference with the governor at his side trumpeting a “full court press” that had increased the number of traffic stops in 2024, the agency has walked back the numbers used in that analysis.
“The Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection has determined that the numbers shared at an Oct. 9 press conference regarding the number of traffic stops conducted by the Connecticut State Police for 2023 did not include all traffic stops,” DESPP spokesman Richard Green said in a press release issued last week.
State police blamed the error on “a change in software used for reporting that was identified and remediated.”
The press release stated the 2023 number of 26,030 cited at the Oct. 9 press conference was incorrect. Here are the updated stop numbers:
Total number of traffic stops for the year 2023: 95,781.
Total number of traffic stops thus far in 2024: 77,133.
The Connecticut Mirror covered the press conference at the state Department of Transportation on Oct. 9. Both Lamont and U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy also attended the event.
Higgins spoke about how increasing traffic enforcement and cutting down speeding on state roads were priorities for him.
“So it’s really been a full court press, a focused approach, utilizing data and holding people accountable,” Higgins said Wednesday. “They’re doing it, and I’m proud of them for doing it, and we want to keep it up.”
Overall, traffic stops reported by all police agencies in Connecticut fell from 513,000 in 2019 to 242,000 in 2020, according to numbers analyzed by CTData.org. They have increased each year since to 313,000 in 2022, still significantly below the pre-pandemic numbers.
Traffic fatalities reached a 40-year high of 366 in 2022 and fell to 310 in 2023. As of Oct. 2, the state had 245 fatalities, an average of 27 every month. If that pace continues, the state will end the year with about 327 deaths.