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Wyoming's new police chief Paul Hoppe is collecting and evaluating traffic data, kind of along the same vein as what transportation experts do when evaluating vehicle traffic counts and patterns. But, Chief Hoppe's analysis aims to save law enforcement hours by focusing officers where they're most effective on Wyoming's roads.

The tool of choice for this 21st century law enforcement effort is the speed trailer. Wyoming has a trailer that is capable of tracking traffic flow and speeds. This handy rig is doing much more than just offering a readout in big numerals the speed of your approaching vehicle.

Chief Hoppe explains that the end of May and first week of June the trailer tracked 226,000 vehicles.

From two corridors of travel (separate trailer locations) it could be calculated an average of 1.4 percent of the vehicles passing the unit were speeding. The group of cars on County Road 30 were speeding at a rate of 3 percent and the group on residential neighborhood roads averaged less than one-half percent "speeding."

No surprise, Hoppe has directed officers to watch County Road 30 where miles per hour transition coming into downtown.

The chief stated, "By collecting and evaluating our data we not only discover areas of need, but can also breakdown the data so officers can determine the time of day in a particular area when the highest probability of violators are present."

And, by the way, that rate of less than one-half percent of speeders in residential quarters is "exceptional" Hoppe added.

There's a box on the police department page on the city website, you can click onto, if you would like to request the speed trailer be positioned in a particular place.

Wyoming police department has also applied for a community grant available through Wal*Mart in hopes of buying two speed feedback signs, that could be permanently mounted in trouble spots and would also assist in slowing drivers.

As another way of incorporating technology into the department, Chief Hoppe's also trying to generate more anonymous tips on criminal activities.

There's a new electronic form that can be filled out on-line at the city's website directly e mailed to him. (www.wyomingmn.org) The city's website will "detach sender information" so tipsters can truly remain anonymous, if they wish. Otherwise if you fill out the field on the web page with name, address, etc. the information will remain available.

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