I contacted Mike Browning, the Director of Public Affairs for the THP asking for a statement about the enforcement program at Deals Gap and I also asked him some specific questions about the program. I was surprised to hear back this evening. The first part was just a copy of the statement most people have already seen from Lt. Colonel Tracy G. Trott. He did provide me with some statistics from last weekends activity, and it was even broken down by how many citations had been issued to motorcycles and how many to cars. Below is the email he sent me.
Monthly Archives: August 2007
There is a lot of controversy right now about the law enforcement situation at Deals Gap. Starting last weekend, and continuing through the month, there will be heavy enforcement by the Tennessee Highway Patrol on Deals Gap. Heavy enforcement means 10 to 15 THP units in the nine mile section of road. I was not there last weekend to witness any of this, but I do have some opinions on the situation. I will be down next week, but probably not during the weekend. If I arrive in Knoxville early enough on Sunday, I may ride down to witness first hand what is happening.
We are home from our latest ride to Deals Gap and I have to say it was a great ride. My last two trips down were a little disappointing due to the sheer volume of riders and some pretty reckless driving. I am happy to report that last week everything was totally back to normal! Mark, Cathy, and I all went down and we all had a great time. We took the long way down as well as the long way home and saw lots of great sights on the road and met lots of interesting people.
Next week we will be back in the Deals Gap area for the family vacation. This will be the first time the kids have ever been in the area so it will be fun to have them along. We plan on doing a lot of sightseeing while we are down there, but have not decided exactly what we are going to do. There are so many things to see and do it is really hard to just pick a few.
This is just a little video overview of the Deals Gap trip I took in July 2007.
Since we had a entire week off of work we decided to do a lot of sightseeing both to and from Deals Gap on this trip.
We got started on Friday morning and followed Ohio 7 down the river. This is a pretty nice ride, at least as far as Ohio rides go, and it sure does beat being on the freeway. After riding for a while Cathy just went screaming past me. Just behind her was a station wagon. I really could not figure out what was going on and when we stopped for the next break I asked her what was up. It turns out that she was racing with the station wagon. One of those deals where the road closes down from two lanes to one lane and everyone races to be the first. Well, they both passed me but I did not even know we were racing! Cathy commented as we were talking about this that she was surprised the station wagon had let me past. Can you believe this? Like she would honestly think a station wagon would have to let the mighty Vstrom pass? I explained to her that when the Tankster and the Vstrom decide to pass they are going to pass. I don’t have to ask no stinking station wagon for permission.