Traffic enforcement fluctuates as police workload ratchets up
Police Chief Thomas Mulcahy says increasingly complex calls for service leave officers less time for proactive enforcement.
Acton police have doled out far fewer individual traffic citations and warnings in recent times than they did just a few years prior, a Acton Bridge analysis of department data shows.
Police Chief Thomas Mulcahy attributes the decrease in traffic enforcement actions to “the number and complexity of calls for service” rising in recent years.
“Many incidents now require substantial follow-up, coordination with outside agencies, evidence processing, and documentation,” Mulcahy told The Acton Bridge in an email. “These demands reduce the amount of discretionary patrol time, when officers typically conduct proactive traffic enforcement.”
The Bridge’s independent analysis of police records shows police took 6,762 traffic enforcement actions in 2022. Three years later, that had fallen to 2,714 — roughly 40% of the 2022 total. The 2025 numbers were down about 30% from the totals in 2023 (3,809) and 2024 (3,898).
In 2026, Acton police logged 2,228 enforcement actions through June.
Of the 2,714 enforcement actions in 2025, police gave out 393 citations or tickets. In 2022, by contrast, police issued 1,757 citations out of 6,762 traffic enforcement actions.
Enforcement totals for each year include civil, criminal, and municipal citations; written and verbal warnings; and arrests.
Types of enforcement actions*
- Arrests
- Criminal citations (Examples: Reckless driving, suspended license; jail time possible)
- Civil citations (Speeding, running a red light; no jail time)
- Municipal citations (Noise ordinances, town bylaw violations; no jail time)
- Written warnings
- Verbal warnings
* Some offenses can move between categories based on severity and the issuing police officer’s discretion.
A divergent path
Acton’s year-by-year trajectory on traffic enforcement actions does not align with that of the state.
According to the Massachusetts Department of Transportation online citation database, police departments statewide recorded just under 957,000 enforcement actions in 2022. In 2025, that number rose to more than 1.2 million.
For Linda Nieman, a Acton resident who advocates for pedestrian and bicycle safety with the group Mothers Out Front, the decline here raises questions for residents concerned about speeding.
“I think my natural response to that would be, ‘Why are we not giving tickets?” Nieman said. “Is it because people are driving slower [or more cautiously] around town? That’s not what I observe.”
An August Acton Bridge analysis of 76 pedestrian and bicycle collisions involving motor vehicles recorded by Acton police from January 2019 to May 2026 found that 2025 had the highest number of incidents, with 2026 on pace to match it through May.
By the numbers
Year | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | 2026*
Total enforcement actions | 5,168 | 6,762 | 3,809 | 3,898 | 2,714 | 2,228
Citations (civil, criminal, municipal) | 1,356
(26% of EAs) | 1,757
(26%) | 1,021
(27%) | 757
(19%) | 393
(14%) | 320
(14%)
What data are we using?
The Acton Bridge asked Acton police for the total number of traffic enforcement actions from January 2021 to June 2026, separated by year, enforcement type, and the ordinance violated.
The numbers we present here do not represent individual traffic stops. One stop can result in multiple enforcement actions. For example, if an officer cites a driver for both speeding and running a stop sign, each violation can appear separately in the data we used.
This data shows the number of recorded enforcement actions, not the number of times officers pulled drivers over.
Multiple infractions
The data analyzed by The Bridge, which shows a decline in overall traffic enforcement actions, also shows a drop among different kinds of infractions.
In 2022, police performed 2,577 speeding enforcement actions. Of those, 500 were civil citations. In 2025, there were 920 speeding enforcement actions and 86 civil citations.
Stop-sign violations followed a similar pattern, though less dramatically. The data shows 391 incidents and 37 civil citations in 2022, compared with 405 incidents and 24 civil citations in 2025.
Those figures do not precisely align with the number of individual traffic stops, Police Capt. Brian Goldman said.
“If I issue you a citation and there are three charges on there … you’re going to get all that totaled up separately versus it being on the one citation,” Goldman said.
Comparing Acton against nearby municipalities using MassDOT data from 2021 to 2025:
- Acton saw a steady increase in enforcement actions until a drop-off in 2025.
- Sudbury police had more enforcement actions in 2025, part of a steady increase.
- Lincoln had a decline in enforcement actions before rebounding in 2024 and 2025.
Shaping the patrol policy
CPD does not have a unit dedicated to traffic. Instead, Goldman said, data and residents’ complaints influence patrols and enforcement.
“If we’re experiencing a high amount of crashes, say at Main Street and Thoreau Street, then we are going to direct our enforcement activities out there,” Goldman said.
Officers have discretion to issue a civil citation, written warning, or verbal warning depending on the circumstances of a stop.
“There’s nothing etched in stone as to how they’re supposed to go about and do things,” Goldman said. “The policies are there to guide the approach, which are about how to conduct yourself as a professional and how to make a sound opinion.”
Goldman also said the drop in traffic enforcement actions has nothing to do with ticket quotas, which CPD eschews.
“We didn’t, we don’t, and we won’t” have quotas, he said. “We don’t — by policy or practice or anything else — have or tell our officers they have to do X, Y, and Z per shift.”
A personnel question
The Bridge asked the Town Manager’s Office whether the drop in traffic enforcement actions shown in the data suggests the police department is understaffed.
The newspaper received a response to the question from Chief Mulcahy, who cautioned against drawing such conclusions.
“Based on the Town’s benchmarking data, Acton’s current police staffing is generally in line with comparable communities,” he said in his emailed response.
Mulcahy also wrote, “Additional staffing generally increases the department’s capacity to perform proactive enforcement, including traffic safety work, while maintaining fast, effective responses to emergency calls and complex investigations.”
Nieman said that in her experience, speeding and distracted driving remain common complaints among Acton bicyclists and pedestrians. She also pointed to inconsistent signage in town as an obstacle to enforcement.
“The town as a whole has to reconsider its safety policy,” she said. “The police, in my opinion, are doing a great job here, but there are issues not making their job any easier.”
Nieman said drivers, pedestrians, and bicyclists all have a role in making Acton’s roads safer.
“Just slow down,” she said. “I think just [have] more grace for the other people that are around you. They’re your neighbors. Just slow down.”
The ‘three E’s’ of safety
Ellen Quackenbush, chair of the Transportation Advisory Committee, told The Acton Bridge that transportation safety is often discussed through the “three E’s”: engineering, education, and enforcement.
As TAC chair, Quackenbush said she didn’t want to speculate on why fewer tickets were being issued and instead focused primarily on the first two E’s.
“I don’t think enforcement is the go-to,” she said. “I think enforcement is the result. If you do a good job, people won’t speed, and you won’t need speeding citations.”
Quackenbush said TAC is working with Acton Public Works on roadway designs intended to make streets safer, including narrower travel lanes, dedicated bicycle lanes, continuous sidewalks, and traffic-calming measures such as sidewalk bump-outs.
The town also has a five-year roadway construction and safety plan in the works that was presented to the Select Board on August 31.
