After a few complaints from residents, the Sunset Hills Police Department has placed a stronger emphasis on traffic calming, specifically on Denny and South Geyer roads. This includes a system of officers running their radar more often in order to detect speeding vehicles.
“We had a lot of complaints on Denny (Road), so we have done a significant amount of traffic enforcement on Denny,” Chief of Police Stephen Dodge said. “Geyer, as well, is a road that we’ve done a significant amount of radar on, and there’s some others that we’ve stressed more about running the radar due to complaints we’ve gotten from citizens.”
According to City Administrator Brittany Gillett, each officer on patrol runs radar for one hour per day. She says that, with four officers on the road for 12-hour shifts each, it amounts to eight hours a day that local streets are being monitored for speed with radar guns.
“They’ve embraced it, and they’ve done a great job with it,” Dodge said about the system. “We’ve concentrated on areas where we have more accidents and get more complaints.”
This practice has caused changes in the year-to-date statistics within the Sunset Hills Police Department. The May report, which was presented at the June 9 Sunset Hills Board of Aldermen meeting, shows 18,979 fewer miles patrolled this year than at the same time last year — 96,446 this year and 115,425 last year.
But with that decrease in miles patrolled, the number of traffic tickets has nearly doubled. Last year at this time, the police had given out 593 tickets; this year, police have already given out 1,087. At the aldermanic meeting, Dodge attributed this to the hourly radar system.
In addition to the radar practices, the Sunset Hills has decided to install solar speed feedback signs, which show motorists their miles per hour. According to Gillett, these signs may be installed sometime between fall 2026 and the early part of next year, depending on the budget.
“The City received a resident concern on speeding along South Geyer,” Ward 4 Alderman Fred Daues said during his report on the recent activities of the Public Works Committee. “Staff completed a speed study. They concluded the 85th percentile speed was 39 miles per hour, with a posted speed limit of 25. The chief of police expressed support for the installation of a speed feedback sign that displays the driver’s speed along with directions such as, ‘Slow down.’”
