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Small towns big on speed ticketing

Started by ixnay, July 17, 2017, 06:44:12 PM

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ixnay

This fellow doesn't seem happy with what a Delaware town did to him...

http://delawarestatenews.net/news/irked-motorist-calls-town-kenton-ticket-mill/

If there's already a thread on this topic, the mods can feel free to move this post there.

ixnay
The Washington/Baltimore/Arlington CSA has two Key Bridges, a Minnesota Avenue, and a Mannasota Avenue.


cpzilliacus

#1
Such a thread needs to have a mention of  Hopewell, Virginia and its speed trap on I-295.

A previous thread discussed abusive speed limit enforcement generally and small-town speed traps in particular, including Hopewell.
Opinions expressed here on AAROADS are strictly personal and mine alone, and do not reflect policies or positions of MWCOG, NCRTPB or their member federal, state, county and municipal governments or any other agency.

fillup420

Any small town along the 2-lane portions of US 421 in southern-central NC.

plain

Definitely Harrington and Greenwood (both DE) and Emporia, VA. Generally speed traps on arterials are worse than the ones on freeways in my experience
Newark born, Richmond bred

nexus73

Watch out for tickets in Port Orford OR.  Tiny town.  US 101 is THE main drag.  The city budget calls for $160K income from tickets.  Cops don't care about the crankers and their crime but they sure do love to play the revenue game.  Then add in Oregon State Police camping in town to give their share of tickets when they should be out patrolling a poorly patrolled unincorporated Curry County. 

This is the most heavily watched section of US 101 I know of.

Rick
US 101 is THE backbone of the Pacific coast from Bandon OR to Willits CA.  Industry, tourism and local traffic would be gone or severely crippled without it being in functioning condition in BOTH states.

jp the roadgeek

Interstates I've clinched: 97, 290 (MA), 291 (CT), 291 (MA), 293, 295 (DE-NJ-PA), 295 (RI-MA), 384, 391, 395 (CT-MA), 395 (MD), 495 (DE), 610 (LA), 684, 691, 695 (MD), 695 (NY), 795 (MD)

1995hoo

One of the most legendary was the now-defunct New Rome, Ohio.
"You know, you never have a guaranteed spot until you have a spot guaranteed."
—Olaf Kolzig, as quoted in the Washington Times on March 28, 2003,
commenting on the Capitals clinching a playoff spot.

"That sounded stupid, didn't it?"
—Kolzig, to the same reporter a few seconds later.

SP Cook

All speed enforcement, whether done by a small town, a big city, or the state; and whether it constitutes 1% or 99% of the jurisdiction's income; and whether it wastes 1% or 100% of the cops time from serious useful police work, is illigitimate. 

ekt8750

Quote from: plain on July 17, 2017, 09:40:34 PM
Definitely Harrington and Greenwood (both DE) and Emporia, VA. Generally speed traps on arterials are worse than the ones on freeways in my experience

You can basically add any small town that US 13 and 113 run through in DE to the list. Here you are cruising down the road at 55 and all the sudden you have to drop 35 (or even 25 in some towns!!) and hope you do so in time or hope there isn't a cop lurking (esp in the aforementioned Harrington.

PHLBOS

#9
At present, PA prohibits local police departments (including Philadelphia) from using radar speed enforcement (they can use other means such as VASCAR and so forth); only PA State Police can use radar.  For VASCAR enforcement, the speed threshold is 10 mph; for radar enforcement, the threshold drops to 6-7 mph.  The reasoning for the ban on local police (some boroughs are only 3 blocks long) using radar was to keep local police from (over)using speed traps to enhance revenue. 
GPS does NOT equal GOD

kalvado

Quote from: SP Cook on July 18, 2017, 11:08:12 AM
All speed enforcement, whether done by a small town, a big city, or the state; and whether it constitutes 1% or 99% of the jurisdiction's income; and whether it wastes 1% or 100% of the cops time from serious useful police work, is illigitimate.
You know, I find such thinking quite dangerous. There is a need to enforce speed limit on fastest batch of drivers; and there is a need to show the presence of police on the road. Realistic speed limit as opposed to current.. OK, don't get me started.

Now that ticketing quotas - which seem to be the way road patrols are managed - are definitely bad. I would think about undesired events rate (crashes, crimes) as a metric for police performance, and allow internal forces to work. That would move patrols from long straight stretches where traffic speed is higher to problematic spots. But probably there is a catch-22 somewhere - catch which I don't see or understand...

SP Cook

Nah, if speed enforcement were about anything but $$, the $$ would not be the penalty.  Imagine is SL violations were punished by, say, community service, or a fine (all of it, including those phony court costs) that goes to someone unrelated to the jurisdiction (say to the Red Cross or something) or simply by forcing the driver to sit beside the road for an hour before proceding and thus "give back" the time he "stole".  Then that would be a legimate system.  And 99.9% of speed enforcement would cease and most SLs would be raised to proper levels. 

But that will never happen.  Becasue speed enforcement is a random tax.  Basiclly it is theft.

LM117

“I don’t know whether to wind my ass or scratch my watch!” - Jim Cornette

dvferyance

Not necessarily a small town Waukesha WI (pop 70,000) is notorious for writing lots of traffic tickets. I got one for the most minor infraction possible that most police departments would give warnings for. About 99% of the traffic stops result in tickets.

jeffandnicole

Quote from: dvferyance on July 18, 2017, 01:39:20 PM
I got one for the most minor infraction possible that most police departments would give warnings for.

What was that?

dvferyance

Quote from: jeffandnicole on July 18, 2017, 01:40:26 PM
Quote from: dvferyance on July 18, 2017, 01:39:20 PM
I got one for the most minor infraction possible that most police departments would give warnings for.

What was that?
Turned right on red where there was a posted sign. I missed the sign becasue the intersection wasn't familiar and the sign wasn't posted in it's usual place. I think they probably did that unpurpose. The sign was posted below on the pole of the light instead on the arm right next to the traffic light like it normally is. I really didn't even see where the safety issue was. There was no visibility issue the intersection was not by a school or railroad tracks and there wasn't an angled street that came through there. But none the less no matter if it was unintentional or how minor it is the police in Waukesha will always write a ticket. Seems to me the sign was just placed there to give the police another reason to write more tickets.

hbelkins

All of these posts again prove the wisdom of having a good radar detector. I've found mine to be of far more benefit in areas off the freeway.


Government would be tolerable if not for politicians and bureaucrats.

Scott5114

There was a fairly well-known one in a town called Big Cabin on US-69 in northeastern OK about ten years ago.

Until one day they nabbed a state legislator. Oooooops.

Dude goes back to Oklahoma City and writes up a bill that says if X% of a town's revenue comes from traffic tickets, they lose the right for their town's police to patrol any state highways for so many years. Passes the legislature with flying colors and the governor signs it.

Big Cabin lost their police presence on US-69, as did a few other towns that were doing the same thing. One had to file bankruptcy and disincorporate (shades of New Rome).
uncontrollable freak sardine salad chef

Brandon

Quote from: Scott5114 on July 18, 2017, 01:53:23 PM
There was a fairly well-known one in a town called Big Cabin on US-69 in northeastern OK about ten years ago.

Until one day they nabbed a state legislator. Oooooops.

Dude goes back to Oklahoma City and writes up a bill that says if X% of a town's revenue comes from traffic tickets, they lose the right for their town's police to patrol any state highways for so many years. Passes the legislature with flying colors and the governor signs it.

Big Cabin lost their police presence on US-69, as did a few other towns that were doing the same thing. One had to file bankruptcy and disincorporate (shades of New Rome).

Breaks my heart so much, I have the world's smallest violin to play for them.
"If you think this has a happy ending, you haven't been paying attention." - Ramsay Bolton

"Symbolic of his struggle against reality." - Reg

kalvado

Quote from: SP Cook on July 18, 2017, 01:26:48 PM
Nah, if speed enforcement were about anything but $$, the $$ would not be the penalty.  Imagine is SL violations were punished by, say, community service, or a fine (all of it, including those phony court costs) that goes to someone unrelated to the jurisdiction (say to the Red Cross or something) or simply by forcing the driver to sit beside the road for an hour before proceding and thus "give back" the time he "stole".  Then that would be a legimate system.  And 99.9% of speed enforcement would cease and most SLs would be raised to proper levels. 

But that will never happen.  Becasue speed enforcement is a random tax.  Basiclly it is theft.
Well, speed enforcement is also about making pretext stops, damned IV amendment inhibits normal police operations!
But removing speed enforcement as a concept (as opposed to significant change of current enforcement practices) is not wise, I would say

rte66man

Quote from: Scott5114 on July 18, 2017, 01:53:23 PM
There was a fairly well-known one in a town called Big Cabin on US-69 in northeastern OK about ten years ago.

Until one day they nabbed a state legislator. Oooooops.

Dude goes back to Oklahoma City and writes up a bill that says if X% of a town's revenue comes from traffic tickets, they lose the right for their town's police to patrol any state highways for so many years. Passes the legislature with flying colors and the governor signs it.

Big Cabin lost their police presence on US-69, as did a few other towns that were doing the same thing. One had to file bankruptcy and disincorporate (shades of New Rome).

That bill about killed Stringtown.  I can remember MC Leist used to stand up in the OK House in the mid 90's and give a weekly report on how many tickets the city cops in Stringtown had written on US 69 the previous week.  If he wasn't the original author, I'm sure he was a co-author of the bill.
When you come to a fork in the road... TAKE IT.

                                                               -Yogi Berra

jwolfer

Quote from: jp the roadgeek on July 17, 2017, 10:58:37 PM
Waldo, FL is legendary.
Waldo PD has been disbanded. Alachua County Sheriffs Department covers law enforcement. So the speed trap there is no more.

About 20 miles north on 301 Lawtey still has strict enforcement. Starke will soon be bypassed by a freeway portion of 301. So the trio of speedtraps eill be reduced to 1

LGMS428


ekt8750

Quote from: hbelkins on July 18, 2017, 01:48:36 PM
All of these posts again prove the wisdom of having a good radar detector. I've found mine to be of far more benefit in areas off the freeway.

And to quote LM117 earlier in this thread:

Quote from: LM117 on July 18, 2017, 01:28:49 PM
Virginia

I don't get how they can constitutionally get away with having a law banning radar detectors.

jeffandnicole

Quote from: ekt8750 on July 18, 2017, 02:49:32 PM
Quote from: hbelkins on July 18, 2017, 01:48:36 PM
All of these posts again prove the wisdom of having a good radar detector. I've found mine to be of far more benefit in areas off the freeway.

And to quote LM117 earlier in this thread:

Quote from: LM117 on July 18, 2017, 01:28:49 PM
Virginia

I don't get how they can constitutionally get away with having a law banning radar detectors.

What does the constitution say about radar detectors?

hbelkins

Quote from: ekt8750 on July 18, 2017, 02:49:32 PM

Quote from: LM117 on July 18, 2017, 01:28:49 PM
Virginia

I don't get how they can constitutionally get away with having a law banning radar detectors.

If the ownership of certain firearms can be prohibited despite the presence of the Second Amendment, then there's certainly nothing that can prohibit the banning of radar detectors.

The fact is that lots of things are banned -- ownership of exotic animals comes to mind. My mother had a pet monkey when she was growing up and that's now illegal in Kentucky.


Government would be tolerable if not for politicians and bureaucrats.



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