DPD Officer Honored For Traffic Enforcement Efforts

Each year, the Dalton Police Department's Traffic Enforcement Unit honors a member of the Patrol Division for outstanding effort in traffic enforcement. Officer William Mefford was selected as the Traffic Safety Officer of the Year for 2020 and he was presented with the award at Monday night's meeting of the Dalton Mayor and Council. 

Officer Mefford joined the Dalton Police Department in 2019 and immediately demonstrated an affinity for working with traffic enforcement. Officer Matthew Dykes, a member of the Traffic Unit who presented the aware Monday night, noted that Mefford has been particularly focused on enforcing Georgia's "Hands Free" Law which prohibits use of handheld cell phones for talking or texting while driving. Officer Dykes noted that instances of distracted driving crashes increased more than 400 percent between 2006 and 2016 in Georgia, making distracted driving as much of a safety concern on the state's roads as speeding and intoxicated driving. Officer Mefford had the most contacts with distracted drivers in 2020 (contacts are the total number of traffic stops involving a particular violation, whether those encounters resulted in a citation or merely a verbal or written warning about the offense). Not only did he lead Dalton in distracted driving contacts, but he also had the most contacts (347) in the entire Mountain Area Traffic Enforcement Network of agencies in the region. As a result, he won the network's 2020 aware for Distracted Driving Enforcement. 

In total, Officer Mefford had 800 contacts with motorists for violations of state traffic laws and local ordinances in 2020. Among those 800 contacts, 539 were for violations that are counted among the four main contributors to crashes and serious injury crashes (speeding, drunken driving, drugged driving, distracted driving). For his efforts to keep Dalton's roads safer, he was honored with the Traffic Safety Officer of the Year recognition.