Traffic from the Labor Day weekend, OU's first home football game and persistent rainy conditions led to several traffic collisions in Norman over the extended weekend.
Information released from the Norman Police Department on Wednesday showed a total of 27 traffic collisions between 5 p.m. Friday and midnight Monday within the city.
In all, there were eight more collisions this year than over the same time period last Labor Day. However, there were only five injury accidents this year compared to seven in 2002.
"I don't know if we were doing our job too thoroughly or if we just weren't on the ball enough," said Sgt. Kevin Foster of the Norman police.
Over the weekend, Norman police wrote 214 traffic tickets and made eight arrests for drunk driving as part of a state-wide law enforcement effort to reduce accidents and injuries by enforcing a no-tolerance policy on seatbelt violations, aggressive driving and drunk driving.
"In my opinion, our preventative measures worked," said community relations officer Jennifer Newell.
Foster said he hopes the increase in enforcement and patrolling helped prevent accidents and injuries. However, police efforts were diverted Saturday for foot patrols and traffic control at the OU-North Texas football game, he said. Drivers also had to deal with persistent rainy conditions and more traffic than usual this year because OU's first home game took place over the Labor Day weekend, Foster said.
"Last year on Labor Day when it rained we had a severe motorcycle accident that put a man in the hospital for a long time," Foster said. "We didn't have anything like that this year."
Over the Labor Day weekend last year, 13 people died in traffic collisions in Oklahoma and 357 were injured, according to the Oklahoma Highway Safety Office. The total number of drivers involved in accidents last Labor Day weekend reached more than 850, according to OHSO.
"I think we had a better weekend than last year," said Lt. Chris West of the Oklahoma Highway Patrol.
Although Oklahoma had 13 fatality accidents last year, around half that number have been reported to the highway patrol so far, West said.
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