May 26, 2016 2 min read

Speeding drivers should be wary the next time they motor past a construction company work truck parked along the side of a highway, because the person sitting behind the wheel could be a state trooper.

State police were out Tuesday afternoon to monitor the speed of traffic going through the construction zone on Interstate 70 westbound near the Bentleyville exit in Somerset Township. And it was not a worker for Golden Triangle sitting behind the wheel of the company truck, but rather a trooper checking the speed of vehicles whizzing past.

“We want to get the message out that if you see a construction truck along the side of the highway, you might want to slow down,” advised Lt. Douglas Bartoe, patrol section commander for Troop B in Washington.

This was not the first effort of this type this construction season, and Bartoe does not expect it to be the last.

“We will be doing it again,” the lieutenant said. “We picked the Bentleyville construction zone for the first one because we had been getting complaints from the construction company about speeding, particularly in the area where it is down to single-lane in each direction.

“We have gotten good cooperation from Golden Triangle,” he added. “I am sure we will be doing the same thing in the construction zone near the Murtland Avenue interchange.”

Bartoe said the trooper with the radar gun was calling out license plate numbers of vehicles to stop so often that the troopers pulling those drivers over were having difficulty keeping up.

“We could have had more troopers out there,” Bartoe said.

During the three-hour enforcement blitz, troopers issued 20 citations for speeding and gave six warnings. Troopers also charged one person with a firearms violation.