When traffic lights turn yellow, drivers in Bismarck should get ready to stop - a police officer might be watching that intersection.

The Bismarck Police Department announced Wednesday that it plans to conduct "red light enforcement saturation" for the next six weeks in an effort to cut down on people ignoring traffic signals.

The enforcement saturation will not use overtime or extra-duty officers, Sgt. Dwight Offerman said. Instead, several regular duty officers will be assigned to watch intersections. The officers will be pulled off red-light duty in case of an emergency, he said.

"We'll assign two to four officers to work this kind of duty while they're on duty,"he explained.

The enforcement will be "zero tolerance," so don't expect a warning if you try to sneak through a red light, Offerman said.

"We know … there's an awful lot of red light violations out there," he said.

In 2006, officers wrote 555 citations for "traffic control signal legend" violations, city code terminology for red light violations. In 2007, 565 such citations were issued. During the first half of 2008, measured on June 30, officers already had written 295 citations.

The high numbers of citations issued for the offense in recent years, paired with community input, led to the enforcement saturation, Offerman said. He said concerns about people running red lights ranks high on annual citizen surveys of the police department.

Offerman said a recent hit-and-run illustrates the need for people to obey traffic signals. On Aug. 8, a car struck 49-year-old Duane Hartze near the eastbound Interstate 94 exit ramp on State Street. Hartze reported the pedestrian signal was on when he ran across the intersection, meaning the car that hit him while making a right turn had failed to yield on a red light.

That case remains unsolved, Offerman said. Hartze said the vehicle that hit him was a tan- or cream-colored, late-1980s Camaro-style vehicle. He was not able to give a description of the driver. Anyone with information is asked to call the Bismarck Police Department at 223-1212 or Bismarck Area Crime Stoppers at 224-TIPS (224-8477).

Offerman said police would prefer people obey the laws rather than end up with tickets for disobeying them.

"We want people to stop when they should," he said.

(Reach reporter Jenny Michael at 250-8225 or jenny.michael@bismarcktribune.com.)