SANDY, Utah — Dangerous speeding and noise complaints are becoming more rampant on a major Sandy road and police are determined to stop the bad driving behavior.
Business owners and residents say the worst of it happens between 8 p.m. and 1 a.m. along 1300 East.
Officers took to the streets and caught 12 people in five hours who violated road rules in the area.
"We are dealing with an uptick in speeding, and it’s unprecedented," explained Sgt. Greg Moffitt with Sandy Police. "I haven’t seen it like this in my entire career.”
Between June 2022 and July 2023, the city responded to 41 calls for noise disturbances and 29 reckless driver reports.
Moffit said that within the last year, officers have clocked vehicles going over 100 miles per hour on 1300 East, a road where speed limits vary between 30 and 45 miles per hour.
"Those speeds are so incredibly dangerous," he said. "Your reaction time is so diminished that one little road hazard, one pothole…it could be catastrophic."
In response to the dangerous behavior, officers are taking action.
"We are going to be stepping up our patrols, we are going to be stepping up our enforcement," Moffit said.
He hopes the added officers will help cut down on vehicle accidents and curb noise disturbances.
Loud mufflers seem to be the thing bothering individuals who work and live in the area.
"They’ll come in here with louder mufflers and sit at the base of our parking lot and they’ll rev their engines," explained Shelby Coleman, who is the assistant manager at Sunset Coffee.
The shop stays open until midnight most days to offer young people a place to hang out and make new friends but she says their later operating hours has made them more susceptible to getting the blame for noise.
"It’s actually taken away a lot of our business," Coleman reflected. "Just having to deal with the security problems."
The shop has tried to be part of the solution for awhile now, Coleman said, calling police when noise gets out of hand and even installing speed bumps in the parking lot. She hopes the extra police patrols fix the issue once and for all.
