The Wyoming Highway Patrol issues quotas for the number of stops and citations its troopers need to make in a given year.
An internal document obtained by the Wyoming Tribune Eagle newspaper shows troopers in Southeast Wyoming’s District One need to make at least 732 traffic stops and issue at least 55 seat belt violations per year to be considered “competent.”
Those ratings directly affect troopers, as they play a role in determining state worker’s salaries.
Highway Patrol administrator John Butler says these quotas function largely as a guide, and they are not absolute.
“If an officer was hurt and couldn’t make that, or went off to school. Than we would pro rate whatever that is. We wouldn’t hold him to the same standards throughout the year if they are not working throughout the year.”
Butler says citations help lower the number of traffic accidents. At the end of October over 120 people had died on Wyoming’s highways.