As reported at TheNewspaper.com…

On Wednesday, the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) announced that unmarked automated ticketing vans would begin prowling the state’s highway work zones as early as April.

“Our goal is to get drivers to voluntarily slow down in the work zone, not issue a bunch of infractions,” WSDOT spokesman Mike Dornfeld said in a statement.

Over the past five years, however, fatal collisions in Washington work zones have been on the decline with a 41 percent reduction taking place without any photo enforcement. WSDOT officials intend to generate statistics over the course of the new project that will help lobby the legislature to re-authorize the program in 2009.