In 2000, there were 27 state troopers assigned to patrol U.S. 1 in the Florida Keys, which is a state road. Today, there are 16 troopers, yet traffic and crashes on the busy highway have more than doubled.
“We at the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office end up doing the state’s job when it comes to writing tickets, stopping drunks and securing accident scenes on that road,” Sheriff Rick Ramsay told the Keys Weekly on March 2.
Ramsay on March 1 sent a letter to Gov. Ron DeSantis, asking him to restore state trooper staffing levels to where they were 22 years ago.
“We have been experiencing a continuous upsurge of traffic crashes and traffic-related matters of concern, yet we have seen a constant reduction in the number of Florida Highway Troopers assigned to Monroe,” Ramsay wrote. “In the year 2000, Monroe had 27 FHP troopers assigned to the county. This year the number has fallen to 16 and four of those positions are currently vacant…
“My office is working at capacity handling our existing duties, yet we find ourselves having to do FHP’s work as well. This is not a reflection on the troopers assigned here; there are simply not enough of them to accomplish their mission…
“Attached you will see the crash data report from the state showing my agency handles 60% of all crashes on State Road 5 (U.S. 1). This is a state road and under the responsibility of (the state). There are constantly no troopers available, thus I have to pull resources from police work to handle the state’s responsibilities, which include crash investigations, reckless drivers, drunk drivers, disabled vehicles, traffic obstruction and so on.
“Approximately half of the assigned troopers live in another county and travel nearly two hours a
day as they drive to and from their homes on the clock. This results in just over 2,000 hours a year of scheduled work time spent commuting to Monroe County. Troopers are not available while on scheduled work time and, therefore, of no value to me. With most of the troopers living in Dade County or the upper part of Monroe County, Monroe is forced to handle 69% of the crashes in the south end and 68% of the crashes in the central part of the county. U.S. 1 is the only road connecting all of the Florida Keys; hence when a crash occurs, the flow of traffic becomes gridlocked for miles. Even worse, when there is a traffic homicide investigation in the south end of the county it takes literally hours for a traffic homicide investigator to arrive. During the long wait the road is shut down and I again have to have deputies pulled from calls for service to wait and secure the crime scene for FHP.
“Our traffic and its impacts on State Road 5 (U.S. 1) have more than doubled since 2000. In the year 2000 we had three full-time traffic homicide investigators assigned to Monroe; now there are none. They are assigned to Dade/Monroe and the vast majority of their time is spent in Dade, not Monroe. In addition, there is now one less sergeant, eight fewer patrol troopers and one fewer clerk.
“This situation is not sustainable. Monroe County has been taken advantage of and left to carry almost all of the water when it comes to highway safety. I ask you to please restore our assigned 27 troopers we had in the year 2000 as a matter of public safety and fairness.”
