The residents of Carefree wish to extend our sincere thanks to the Officers and Deputies of the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office (MCSO) and the other participating State Agencies for jobs well done to manage traffic on Carefree’s roads during the recent Bike Week event. The Carefree Town Government also wishes to extend our thanks to residents from throughout the Foothills area for their input and support as we continue to work together to strengthen our response to such events and to improve safety for all.
Protecting the safety of Carefree’s residents is a key responsibility of the Carefree Town Council and Staff. The single largest aspect of safety, and the area which can have an immediate and direct impact upon Carefree’s residents, is vehicular traffic (including cars, trucks ATVs and motorcycles) on our major roads. Better controlling vehicular speed and minimizing DUI behavior are, thus, important requirements to increasing safety.
The major roads into downtown Cave Creek all lead through Carefree. Because of a few bad actors, the increase of traffic during Bike Week historically has coincided with increased speeding, reckless behavior and intoxicated driving on Carefree’s roads – and with it, the potential for additional endangerment of Carefree’s residents. Accordingly, during the recently concluded (October 8 – 11, 2020) Fall Bike Week event, MCSO and other participating State Agencies coordinated their efforts to educated event participants, and discourage and better control reckless activities.
This combined Task Force brought significantly increased visibility and enforcement during the Bike Week time frame. In addition to the Officers and Deputies assigned from MCSO District 4 (Carefree /Cave Creek/Anthem), resources were also brought to bear from MCSO’s Lake Patrol Squad (Bartlett Lake), District 2 (Avondale) and District 3 (Sun City). The Governor’s Highway Safety Department, members from the East Valley DUI Squad and the State Liquor Control Board also participated.
Seemingly, once the Task Force’s visibility was established and their presence was known, that alone served to improve public safety. However, even with this stepped-up presence, members of the Task Force still reported over 250 traffic stops, with over 50% of these resulting in citations. MCSO estimates that at least 75% of these were made on Carefree’s roads.
This was the first time in recent years that such a concerted effort was made on Carefree’s roads during Bike Week. As in every traffic enforcement endeavor, not every law breaker was stopped or cited, but we believe that public safety was significantly improved. Lessons were learned, experience was gained, and next time MCSO and the participating State Agencies will be even more effective.
Les Peterson
Town of Carefree, Mayor
