Spray paint put to good use for once
The town next to us, Hurricane, UT, has a state road leading to Zion National Park through it. The road is 4 lanes, with varying speed limits, but not really any road differences to account for the speed changes. Their police force just hangs out there all day printing money from drivers.
Defenders of aggressive speed enforcement will tell you traffic stops often lead to other arrests, and I suppose it does, but I suspect we would catch those people eventually some other way, without robbing the citizenry along the way. I’d prefer harsher sentences to constantly recapturing them after first stopping hundreds of good citizens.
Individual cops will tell you they have quotas, while their chiefs blatantly lie about it.
I don’t mind speed limits, but I think the ticketing ought to start at 75% over, or what is reckless for the conditions.
January 19th, 2010 at 1:31 pm
Speed limits don’t depend only on the observable roadway. They can depend on the nature of intersections, the business or residential situations, the likelihood of weather problems, the density of expected traffic, the presence of pedestrians less able to defend themselves, etc.
January 19th, 2010 at 1:38 pm
Sure, I know. And at least one of the speed changes on the road mentioned is due to a high risk left turn. But… they could put up a flasher warning, instead they put up a speed limit sign and give tickets to people going through there once in their lives.
You cannot make the claim that police departments seriously use our safety as a guideline for ticket issuance. They do it for the money.
January 19th, 2010 at 1:42 pm
Speed limits, in California,anyway, have to be determined by an independent traffic survey done every 5 years. If that is outdated, no radar tickets can be written there. A stretch of road with inexsplicable speed changes would also be illegal. All the things mentioned by #1 are taken into account during the survey. As long as the speed can be justified by conditions, its OK; when its arbitrary it becomes illegal. That’s why an independent firm usually does the survey.
Most cops, down here anyway, hate writing tickets. Its a headache. Only traffic cops really do much of it. And Chippies, but they aren’t really cops.
October 20th, 2010 at 10:43 am
How about the other tactics the afore mentioned juristiction employs. Un-needed red lights. Example? While driving to work at 4:30am the (normally for cross traffic, sensor activated) traffic light 100 yards ahead of you turns red for no apparent reason. You can see 100 yards to the right and 300 yards to the left. There is NO other traffic to trip the sensor! Humm….. you consider blowing the red light that is about to suck up an extra 1/2 gallon of gas and wear your brakes out sooner but then you see, sitting in the shadows, one of Hurricane’s finest! You stop, you sit there for about 45 seconds while no other traffic is even on the road and then you continue on your way when the light turns green again. My point? The town’s police KNOW about this obvious TRAP and capitalize on it purely for monitary gain! Did you know that in Minnesota the police are REQUIRED to leave their parking lights on when parked while monitoring traffic. In other words, they are allowed, and I say, even encouraged to be “sneaky” here.
October 20th, 2010 at 11:22 am
Yep – Hurricane is basically a speed trap in my book. No safety at issue, just moolah.
I’d like to get rid of red lights. Just warn people an intersection is a ahead and they better watch out. That would go farther to reducing gas usage than “green” shinola.