Oxford Police Chief Michael Daniels says that a lack of staffing is making it difficult for the police department to address worries regarding traffic safety.
In a Facebook post on Wednesday, the chief wrote that over the past few weeks, he has been fielding concerns from residents that drivers are rolling through stop signs, speeding, and failing to slow down at intersections. He added that the department has seen reports of children riding bikes in the middle of the road, playing “chicken” with vehicles.
“You get a kid… on a side road close to Main where that intersection is, they’ll drive towards a car and they’ll swerve out of the way,” the chief told MassLive.
Most of the traffic calls the department receives pertain to the intersection of Main Street and Sutton Avenue, according to Daniels. The intersection is close to Interstate 395, which has drivers coming from both Massachusetts and Connecticut.
“People are cutting in front of people turning left onto Main Street,“ Daniels said. ”Other people are cutting, people are going right..turning onto Main Street because the traffic builds up so much there that there’s a level of impatience with people. So they try to sneak past people and then they try to burn through the lights just to get through the intersection, which causes accidents.”
The area is also filled with children during the summertime, as that’s where several shops are, according to Daniels. He has seen Facebook posts about children on bikes driving in and out of traffic.
The chief said that no child has suffered an injury playing “chicken” with vehicles yet. He added that he wrote the post on Facebook to prevent potential injuries from happening.
“If you’re a parent, please take a few minutes to talk with your kids about staying out of the road, riding safely, and being aware of traffic,” the post reads. “We’ve got to look out for one another before something preventable turns tragic.”
In the post, Daniels writes that the department is doing all that it can to address these concerns but that it is difficult due to staffing limitations. Officers are often pulled away from their traffic enforcement duties to take care of other calls.
A 2024 staffing analysis conducted by the Town of Oxford and the New Hampshire-based consulting firm Municipal Resources Inc. found that hiring four additional patrol officers would help address these issues.
An opportunity to provide the police department funding for these hires came in 2025, when town voters were given the choice as to whether they would approve an override of Proposition 2 1/2.
Proposition 2 1/2 is a law that places a 2.5% limit on property tax increases. Towns, however, can make an exception to override the proposition if voters approve of it. The increase in property taxes would have helped address funding issues for the police department.
The town ultimately voted down the proposal in May, according to Daniels.
With a lack of funding available to hire more officers, the Oxford Police Department is doing all that it can to address traffic concerns, Daniels said.
He said that he has to pull officers out of the town’s three sectors to provide some level of traffic oversight. While this addresses people’s concerns, Daniels said that more officers are needed to tackle the traffic concerns truly.
“We are putting a band-aid on a problem that we cannot solve long-term without increased presence and manpower,” he said.
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