Trooper Hammons Discusses Unmarked Police Cars And Child Safety Seat Use

Trooper Stephen Hammons, Public Information Officer for State Police Troop I visited 'Mornings With Ken and Bernie' today and discussed Troop I's on-going initiative to stop drivers from texting and driving.

According to Hammons,

This weekend we had a campaign where we went out not only looking for people texting and driving but not wearing seat belts and driving impaired.  It's so hard to detect some of these behaviors in marked State Police vehicle because when drivers see the vehicle their behavior improves.  What we did was place a trooper in an unmarked vehicle who would notify troopers ahead who could pull those drivers over.

Hammons also fielded calls from KPEL NewsJunkies and our first caller asked about the legality of extended spoke wheels that extend past the wheel wells.  To that Hammons said,

Right now there is no specific law that addresses those rims to make them illegal.  There is a misconception that tires can extend past the wheel well up to a certain amount but that is incorrect.  If your tires extend past your wheel wells you must have mud flaps to prevent rocks from damaging vehicles traveling behind you.

Another caller asked what should be done about placing a child restraint seat in the front seat of a vehicle if the three seats in rear have children in them.  Hammons replied,

The only time a child seat should be placed on the front seat of a vehicle is if the vehicle has only one seat such as a two door pickup truck.  In your case you could place a fourth child in the front seat with the proper child seat but you must turn off the airbag to insure that the child will not be injured by the device in case of an accident.

You can listen to the entire interview by clicking the blue arrow below: