Road Rage, Wrecks Lead To More Tickets On Jenks Highway

Jenks Police say they're seeing more wrecks, and more road rage, on Highway 75 and they blame it on the construction.

Drivers on Highway 75 are getting fed up with construction and bumper-to-bumper traffic, tacking on significant time to their morning and evening commutes.

"Drastic increase in collisions," said Corporal Michael Gauldin, Jenks Police Department. "We've observed a lot of road rage starting to happen, impatient drivers, people that are getting annoyed with other drivers trying to pass traffic."

Corporal Gauldin says they often see drivers pulling into the lefthand lane to stop that from happening, but he says *they* are the ones breaking the law.

"We always have to remind them that it's not against the law for drivers to pass in the left hand lane until that driver gets to the merge now sign," said Cpl. Gauldin.

And in fact, they're the ones officers will hand tickets.

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Cpl. Gauldin said, "It's not the responsibility of other drivers to try to maintain traffic flow on the highway. That's the police department's job."

Some drivers are better than others at keeping a cool head, like Kyle Rahnenfuehrer.

"You just have to work it into your schedule and plan for it," said Kyle Rahnenfuehrer, who manages a business nearby.

He says he always reminds himself that it could be much worse.

"I'm thankful for Tulsa just because relatively speaking, traffic isn't that bad, compared to Dallas," Rahnenfuehrer said. But he hopes there's an end in sight soon.

Cpl. Gauldin says officers are handing out up to 10 tickets per morning. He says drivers should plan ahead for their morning commute and be as courteous as possible to other drivers to avoid being cited.

The $4 million project to resurface Highway 75 should be finished in a few weeks.