Queen Creek police would put more officers on overtime to target impaired and speeding drivers over the next year under two federal highway safety grants the Town Council is scheduled to accept Oct. 21.
Both grants come through the Arizona Governor's Office of Highway Safety and cover the federal fiscal year that began Oct. 1. They are on the consent agenda for the council's 6:30 p.m. regular session at the Community Chambers, 20727 E. Civic Parkway, where items are typically approved together in one vote.
Speed enforcement and radar counters
The larger award, $111,660, would pay for selective traffic enforcement. Police Chief Randy Brice's memo to the council says officers handled 1,622 crashes without injuries, 45 crashes involving DUI and four deadly crashes in 2025, and the grant paperwork counts 578 speeding-related crashes that year, with three serious injuries and two deaths.
About $84,000 would cover overtime and related costs for extra patrols, task force operations and high-visibility enforcement on holidays and at other times when risk runs high. The remaining $27,660 would buy more roadside radar units that log traffic volumes and average speeds by time of day without singling out any driver or car.
The memo says the department already uses that data to decide where to send officers and to check whether residents' speeding complaints hold up.
The grant's goals, measured against 2025, are to cut speeding-related crashes by 5% to 549, and to trim serious injuries and deaths in those crashes to two and one. Officers would hold focused speed details four or more times each month.
DUI patrols and school training
A second grant, $60,000, would fund overtime for at least five DUI saturation patrols and five regional DUI task force operations in the East Valley. The department's Vehicular Crimes Unit investigated 10 major-injury or fatal collisions in 2025, and impairment was confirmed in five of them, the memo says. Drug-related DUI arrests rose 13% in 2025 after a 21% rise in 2024.
