HOUSTON – The City of Houston is tackling the road rage and aggressive driving problem on highways Interstate 45 and U.S. 59.
It’s part of a new traffic safety initiative, Mayor John Whitmire announced last week.
“We’re going to focus more and more on traffic enforcement,” Whitmire said in the announcement video.
Houston Police Department said about 300 citations were given to drivers last Wednesday and Thursday in the new traffic safety push.
Officers were targeting tailgating, speeding, reckless driving and road rage, among other violations.
While the department did not say what the average number of citations were in a two day span, Houston Police Union president Doug Griffith told KPRC 2 that number is higher than usual.
“I think it’s a great idea that law enforcement is actually going to be out there,” said Reverend Roland Mouton, who lost his identical twin brother Pastor Ronald Mouton to a road rage shooting three years ago.
The incident happened on the Gulf Freeway feeder road near Gould Street.
“You just never know when you may be the next victim,” said Mouton. “These days, you can just look at somebody wrong while driving and it might cost you your life.”
KPRC 2 looked into the number of people who were shot from road rages in the last ten years.
We found numbers from Gun Violence Archive which reveal in 2014, 10 people were shot. In 2019, that number was 29. In 2024, it was 84.
Houston also ranked number one in the number of road rage shootings across the U.S. between 2014 and 2023.
“We intend to go around Houston and let people know we will not tolerate road rage,” said Whitmire, who campaigned on public safety.
Whitmire said the city will continue to build up the number of officers in the police department, so there is more traffic enforcement.
HPD did not state why I-45 and U.S. 59 are the highways that are part of this initiative.
After the success the city saw with the first traffic safety initiative, Mayor John Whitmire says HPD will be back out on Tuesday, ramping up traffic enforcement on Highway 288 and the South Loop.
“We want everyone to know that we take road rage, speeding, DWIs very serious,” said Whitmire.
He said HPD expects to issue a lot of citations to encourage people to slow down and drive responsibly.
