An Adams Township police officer talks to the driver of the truck he pulled over Friday as part of the PennDOT aggressive driving enforcement campaign along Route 228.

ADAMS TWP — Drivers beware: Police are targeting aggressive driving throughout Butler County.

PennDOT kicked off its enforcement campaign Monday. It will run through Nov. 19.

“The objective is always to save lives,” said Jay Ofsanik, safety press officer with PennDOT District 12. “They're out there trying to slow people down.”

Local police and PennDOT representatives met Friday at the Adams Township Municipal Building to discuss campaign details.

In PennDOT's Region 6, which includes Butler, Allegheny, Armstrong, Beaver, Clarion, Indiana, Jefferson, Lawrence, Fayette, Greene, Washington and Westmoreland counties, there will be 50 police departments and four state police troops stepping up patrols on roads where aggressive driving is an issue.

Statewide a total of 240 police departments and 15 state police troops are also participating.

Sgt. Ed Lenz with Adams Township Police said the department's main focus is Route 228. They put out signs letting people know aggressive driving enforcement is in action, but otherwise drivers won't see the police until it is too late.

Officers look for behaviors like speeding, following too closely and distracted driving, Lenz said. They are especially focusing this year on people who drive in the passing lane, Ofsanik said.

The goal is not to write more citations, he said, but to get people to pay more attention to their driving and make the roads safer. From 2012 to 2016, there were 116 driving fatalities in Butler County — 14 of which were caused by aggressive driving, according to PennDOT Region 6 statistics.

Sgt. Cheryl Cranmer with Penn Township Police said the department targets the Route 8 corridor with ramped up patrols because it is a high-volume crash area where drivers often exceed the 50 mph speed limit. They've clocked people going up to 100 mph on Route 8, she said.

They also watch the traffic lights more closely to catch people who run them because they “don't want to slam on their brakes,” Cranmer said.

“We get some pretty violent crashes,” she said. “None of us out there want to knock on anyone's doors and tell you your loved one's not coming home.”

Through grants from the Pennsylvania Aggressive Driving Enforcement and Education Program, PennDOT pays for the extra hours worked by law enforcement to patrol the roads more during the campaign, Ofsanik said.

The police officers said the campaign works to wake people up. Cranmer said people often get into bad driving habits in their daily routines.

Whether it's seeing more police cruisers on the roads, noticing the signs or watching fellow drivers get a ticket, drivers seem to pay attention and drive more safely, the officers said.

“Write one car a ticket, and that one contact makes a bigger impact on all those cars driving past,” Lenz said.