Speed Traps...

[hbelkins]

One thing about Kentucky is that on state maintained highways, the state sets the speed limit. Local governments can request speed limit changes, but the final decision belongs to the state. Local governments don't set speed limits on state highways.

[Kacie Jane]

I-5 at Starbird Road (Exit 218 in Washington).  In the past two months, I've seen a total of 7 cops on 5 different occasions, chilling on the overpass with their radar guns.  (I make the trip about every other week, I think the math works out to them being there about 25% of the time.)

I'm not sure what the reason is for the location, it's in the 70 mph zone.  It is just north of the Skagit County line, but all the enforcement is done by the State Patrol, not locally.

The only other speed trap I've noticed with any sort of regularity is at 145th Street (Exit 175) -- they like the northbound freeway stop.

[Tom]

Thought this Marmaduke cartoon was pretty amusing:
http://comics.com/zoom/343305

[SteveG1988]

I got a ticket for doing 85 in a 65 last year on the PA turnpike NE extension, came over a hill and the cop caught me, took until the I-80 exit for me to realise the cop was following me. GOod thing she did not catch me about 20 minutes earlier when i was doing my cars top speed...109 mph. Is it just me or is the speed limit on the NJ turnpike pretty much the "do this and you get your doors blown off" speed? same with 295 and 195.

[njroadhorse]

Is it just me or is the speed limit on the NJ turnpike pretty much the "do this and you get your doors blown off" speed? same with 295 and 195.

I'm pretty sure that applies to any New Jersey highway.  More so on the Turnpike and the Parkway than on 195 and 295 that I've seen.  Also, Interstate 80 applies too, especially between Netcong and Paterson.

[agentsteel53]

Is it just me or is the speed limit on the NJ turnpike pretty much the "do this and you get your doors blown off" speed?

what do you mean by that?

[SteveG1988]

Is it just me or is the speed limit on the NJ turnpike pretty much the "do this and you get your doors blown off" speed?

what do you mean by that?

As in,if you do the 65 mph, everybody even little old ladies in large cars pass you.

Also a big speed trap where i was at in ND. US-2 and the airport in grand forks, speed limit drops down to 55 from 70 on the four lane road, and the cops wait at the intersection after the speed change. good thing about ND is you can see cops for miles around.

[vdeane]

As in,if you do the 65 mph, everybody even little old ladies in large cars pass you.

Pretty much every road in NY is like that, even the ones posted lower.

[agentsteel53]

oh, I getcha.  In my experience, damn near every freeway in the country is like that.  not quite as badly as was during the silly 55mph era, where even the cops didn't bother raising an eyebrow below 80...

[Quillz]

Probably been mentioned already, but US-395 in the Owens Valley. I don't know where CHP hides, but you go maybe 5-10 mph above the speed limit, and BAM! You get pulled over.

A couple of years ago I was driving back from Mammoth with my father. The speed limit was 65 (IIRC), he was going 71 or so. About 15 seconds later, an officer pulls up behind him, and pulls over not just him, but the two cars in front of us. Out of nowhere, a three-person traffic stop.

Also Victory Boulevard in the SF Valley (not a numbered street) has several sections, especially the one west of CA-27, that is notorious for pulling people over who go even the slightest bit above the speed limit.

[SteveG1988]

NJ has another way to get you on the turnpike, Slit-Vane type displays that can change the speed. So you can be in what on tuesday was a 65 mph zone, but today it is a 45 or a 55 due to some arbitrary reason.

[Duke87]

I don't recall ever seeing the speed limit lowered other than due to construction, foul weather, or congestion - all of which makes perfect sense.

Then again, maybe I've just never noticed when the neon signs aren't lit...

[Alps]

I don't recall ever seeing the speed limit lowered other than due to construction, foul weather, or congestion - all of which makes perfect sense.

Then again, maybe I've just never noticed when the neon signs aren't lit...

You're correct, the speed limit only changes for basically those reasons.  I can't think of another offhand, and I wrote the manual on them (well... on work zones in general).

[Crazy Volvo Guy]

North Courtland, AL on 20/Alt US 72.  Speed limit 65.  I was doing between 65 and 70 through there one evening.  Pulled/ticketed for 75.

Went to traffic school on that; in the class was an old asian guy who arrived in a gold-over-tan early 2000s Honda Accord.  His ticket?  83 in a 65.  His statement?  "He said 83 but I was going between 60 and 65."  Accent and everything.

I'd rate the place as pretty damn close to what New Rome was.  Court was PACKED.  They're taking in $150+ in court costs on every ticket.  Their courtroom?  A borrowed church, or the "Senior Citizens Center" depending on when, I guess.  The "municipal complex" that is the town hall-police dept. is a trailer, just like in New Rome.  They have 5 cruisers, all unmarked.  Just to patrol a 2-mile stretch of 20.

Oh, and it was incorporated in 1981.

[Truvelo]

Why is the speed you were ticketed for higher than you were traveling? Let me guess - either your speedo was underreading, the cop's equipment isn't calibrated or the cops are bent and deliberately inflate your speed to earn extra $

[Scott5114]

North Courtland, AL

Courtland

Courtland

What did you expect?

[burgess87]

North Courtland, AL

Courtland

Courtland

What did you expect?

I LOL'd. 

[nexus73]

On Oregon's south coast, be careful of heavy speed enforcement in Port Orford, a city of about 1200 people and more cops on patrol than any other city in our region.  Sometimes the Oregon State Police like to send an unit there too.  For the most part it's all about the revenue.  The City of Port Orford has an intake of $160K budgeted from tickets.

(Dis)honorable mention: Gold Beach.  Sometimes the cop cars on the side of the road are empty but don't count on it...LOL!

Rick

[Dr Frankenstein]

(Dis)honorable mention: Gold Beach.  Sometimes the cop cars on the side of the road are empty but don't count on it...LOL!

Or here in QC: sleeping!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKhWlyoNYig

[Bickendan]

The Thruway. That is all.

[agentsteel53]

CA-58.  Mojave Bypass.  It took all my salesmanship to talk my way out of this one... and yes, the cops are always there, so I knew to drive slowly.  Except I had a horrific little Kia that was, at maximum pedal-to-the-metal, doing 63 up the hill from Tehachapi.  

So when it came time to come down the hill I wasn't quite used to the newfound acceleration - and the steering wheel blocks the speedometer (gee thanks, car designed for people who are 5 feet 4 inches tall) so I could, in all honesty, tell the officer that I had no idea how fast I had been going.

turns out it was 84 in a 65.  I will do my best to slow down, if this idiot-beast of a car will let me ...

[mightyace]

Boston Heights, OH - contains OH 8, 303 and the Turnpike (I-80)

around 1,000 residents, at least a half dozen cops (at least back when I lived in that part of Ohio)

[Crazy Volvo Guy]

the cops are bent and deliberately inflate your speed to earn extra $

This one, most likely.

My speedo does slightly under-read, but only by 2mph at 70.  I take this into account at all times, but that particular night I was going by the GPS anyway.

[vdeane]

The Thruway. That is all.

I'd expand it to the entire state of New York.  In fact, the reconstruction of the Thruway between exits 39 and 40 had widened areas where a state police vehicle could sit in the median.  State trooper presence and reasonableness of the speed limit are inversely related.

[Crazy Volvo Guy]

I'd expand it to the entire state of New York.  In fact, the reconstruction of the Thruway between exits 39 and 40 had widened areas where a state police vehicle could sit in the median.  State trooper presence and reasonableness of the speed limit are inversely related.

Definitely not I-84.  I used to go the entire length of I-84 all the time back when I lived in NH; I passed State Troopers sitting in the median, in excess of 75, many times.  This was back when most of it was still 55, too.  I was told by several locals that on I-84 they won't come after you unless you're doing 80+.  I believe that was largely true.  Not sure about now, it's been a few years since I've been that way.