Over the past seven months, nearly 50,000 drivers in Fairfax County got a written reminder from police to drive more carefully.

Fairfax County and Virginia State Police held five weeklong crackdowns on speeders and distracted drivers as part of their Road Shark campaign.

The program intends to make the roads in the Virginia county safer by focusing on high visibility enforcement, outreach and education to the public, the department said in a release earlier this year.

The 2025 campaign ended Oct. 19 with almost 50,000 citations and warnings being written, a 43% jump from last year when only 35,000 tickets and warnings were given out.

“We’re still seeing tens of thousands of people die every year on the highways in the United States, so we’re trying our very best to reduce that,” said Fairfax County Assistant Chief of Police Robert Blakley during the program launch.

The last week of the campaign racked up 10,565 citations and warnings, with more than 900 of them for speeding. But the focus isn’t on the number of citations.

“This campaign is not about writing tickets or seeing how many tickets and warnings we can write,” Blakley said. ”By seeing more blue lights and police officers out on the roadways, our residents are more likely to remember to look down at their speedometer, reduce the distractions in the cockpits of their cars and get home safe.”

The annual Road Shark campaign has been going on since 1999.