HUMBOLDT At 10:30 Tuesday morning five southbound semis consecutively drove into Humboldt on Ninth Street, once the route of U.S.169.
Old 169 has been used extensively as an unofficial detour while the highway is being rebuilt from Iola to Chanute. The official detour by way of Yates Center adds about 40 miles.
With Ninth Street a leg of the old highway, the traffic has been nonstop, posing additional work for law enforcement.
Weve been busy, said Chief of Police Shannon Moore. A tally shows 465 traffic stops during 2018. Most resulted in warnings, but 111 drivers were cited. Moore said a warning is often a more effective deterrent than a ticket.
When we stop truckers their No. 1 excuse is they didnt see the (30 mph) sign when they drove into town because they were looking at their Garmin, for directions.
One semi driver took it to the extreme.
She was at Johnsons (convenience store) asking for directions and had Humboldt blacked out on her road map a black hole, she called it. She said her Garmin had taken her into Humboldt five times, and didnt know how to get out. She was from Mississippi and going to Wisconsin. I led her out onto the old highway and called deputies and asked them to direct her to the new highway, by way of Minnesota Road south of Iola.
Another truck driver, driving in from the south, didnt get a warning. He was caught at 58 mph at 2 a.m., four blocks south of the downtown square. Another was clocked at 56.
Drivers with foreign drivers licenses are fairly common.
Weve stopped several from Mexico, one from Guatemala and one from Brazil. I wrote the guy from Guatemala a ticket and when I gave it to him, he said, Thats not my name. His license was quite a bit different from ours and the name I put on the ticket was for the motor vehicle director.
For reasons unknown, Moore said officers receive the most calls for assistance from Thursday to Saturday afternoons.
Why, I dont know, but having that information lets me schedule patrol overlaps, Moore said.
I cant do that too much, though, she said. We are authorized five full-time officers and four part-time. Right now we are down one full-time position, and two part-time. And, Humboldt seldom has more than one officer on duty.
Moore said the increased traffic also brings more drugs.
Im confident we have drugs coming through town with all the highway traffic. Weve done a couple of vehicle searches and didnt find anything, but they were pretty limited. Ive told officers about some things to look for, though.
ASIDE FROM the increased traffic, 2018 statistics show Humboldt officers were called 2,677 times for a variety of reasons, including 45 criminal calls involving people, mostly domestic cases including three sexual assaults, and 69 for property crimes, mostly thefts. Another 45 calls were for animal control.
