Pa. SARP chief: Local police in Pa. need radar to nab speeders

[stano0098]

http://m.poconorecord.com/apps/pbcs....emplate=wapart

SARP chief: Local police in Pa. need radar to nab speeders
By David Pierce
Pocono Record Writer
November 20, 2010 12:00 AM

Required use of antiquated equipment makes it nearly impossible for local police to improve road safety through law enforcement, Stroud Area Regional Police Chief John Baujan said Friday.

Baujan, speaking during a Safe80 Task Force meeting at the Pocono Township building, expressed frustration about state law that prevents local police from using radar to catch speeders. The task force is trying to improve motorist safety on Interstate 80 and other roads in Monroe County, where 31 people have died in crashes this year.

"We're handicapped severely with the type of equipment we're allowed to use," Baujan said. "It's crazy. For anyone to expect us to get the job done with the equipment we have, I assure you, is not going to happen."

State police can use radar to clock speeders in Pennsylvania, but local police must resort to other means. This includes employing a two-person crew to time how long it takes a driver to get from one point to another, to calculate the vehicle's speed.

Rep. Mario Scavello, who previously sponsored unsuccessful legislation to allow 1,500 municipal departments to use radar, said some legislators fear local police would use radar to establish speed traps and use it to pad municipal budgets.

Scavello said he hopes to reintroduce a bill next year that would allow five police departments of various sizes across the state to use radar on a trial basis.

"My goal is if we can't do it all let's do the test run and use one of our regionals" as a Monroe test site, he said. Stroud Area Regional Police and Pocono Mountain Regional Police operate departments serving multiple municipalities.

Several people offered suggestions for educating local motorists about the dangers of unsafe driving in hopes of reducing crashes. Jamie Keener, the task force chairman, said he wants all area school districts to reintroduce student driver education.

Nina Woodling, who coordinates a county program providing car seats to infants and toddlers in low-income families, said older students could be approached through Students Against Drunk Driving chapters.

Several people debated the merits of automatic cameras to catch speeders and deter unsafe driving. Some said Pennsylvania enforcement using photography might be impeded by an inability to identify the driver, with tickets typically issued to the owner without documenting if the owner was behind the wheel.

[krypton2]

Municipal police in PA do need to be allowed to use radar. Give municipal police the ability to use stationary radar and give PSP the ability to use moving radar, all in one bill. It would make everyone happy and the ultimate goal is achieved.

[radarrob]

Pa car insurence is cheap. if they approve this bill there will be allot of unhappy campers. throw some lidar in the bill as well.by doing this it will help the Pa budget.

[NormSky]

Rob & Kyrpton for office!

[SpeedUp]

Municipal police in PA do need to be allowed to use radar. Give municipal police the ability to use stationary radar and give PSP the ability to use moving radar, all in one bill. It would make everyone happy and the ultimate goal is achieved.

Why would we want to do that? Oh yeah to write more stupid speeding tickets. Please. Which municipal do you work for again?

I don't see how anyone would support this bill passing. Sounds like the local cops in PA are just LAZY at enforcing the speed limits with the equipment they already have. What's next? Local municipals want to use Lidar to increase the safety? Load of BS.

[SteadySpeedin]

Just give both the local police and state police LIDAR, and call it a day . Don't give them radar, that's not legal to jam .

[krypton2]

Municipal police in PA do need to be allowed to use radar. Give municipal police the ability to use stationary radar and give PSP the ability to use moving radar, all in one bill. It would make everyone happy and the ultimate goal is achieved.

Why would we want to do that? Oh yeah to write more stupid speeding tickets. Please. Which municipal do you work for again?

I don't see how anyone would support this bill passing. Sounds like the local cops in PA are just LAZY at enforcing the speed limits with the equipment they already have. What's next? Local municipals want to use Lidar to increase the safety? Load of BS.

Enforcing speed laws isn't any faster with radar or lidar than it is with a stopwatch. I don't know why people think it is...and with devices like ENRADD you don't even have to do anything except stare at a screen that tells you the speed of every vehicle passing by automatically. It's more the set up that is the issue.

When you click and shoot a radar (or lidar) gun it takes a second or two for you to click it and then look at the display and set it down to make a stop. When you use a stopwatch you look at the road, click a button twice, and then look at the display. A stopwatch is a little thing that doesn't weigh much so you don't have to worry about setting it down as lightly as you would with a bulky radar gun, which saves some time. Or if you use a VASCAR device, it's built into the console or dash so you don't have to worry about setting anything anywhere. It's not any more difficult and doesn't take any extra time to use VASCAR or a similar measure, it's the concept that is the issue.

When you constantly get complaints about people speeding beyond belief on a road, you can set up and run radar or lidar. With vascar, you can set up wherever you want but it's unreliable when the points aren't already premeasured. So to have the greatest accuracy with vascar, the two points on the road need to be measured, marked, measured again to ensure accuracy, and then they can be used with the greatest accuracy. That could take a day, but it's likely a week or more when done properly as you have to wait for the supervisors and road maintenance to come out.

I don't have issues with people speeding in general, in fact around here a lot of officers give PSL+15 which I think is a respectable amount for residential roads. After all, PA law requires PSL+10 before a stop can be made by municipal police anyway. I'm not here to cause problems, I just provide a different perspective on a unique state when it comes to speed enforcement.

That being said, to get back to my original point, using radar isn't any faster than using VASCAR when it comes to actually timing vehicles, so that point that people make is irrelevant. As far as the stop itself goes, too, it takes the same length of time whether you're stopping someone for speeding with radar or speeding with vascar. It's more the set up time and the accuracy combined, that causes issues with VASCAR.

No more speeding tickets would be issued if municipal police used radar than they issue now. The officers who like running traffic will continue to do it with more accuracy, and the ones who prefer not to won't. There's not an overall hatred of radar in Pennsylvania from what I see, by the general public or by regular drivers like the people on here. I rarely see PA residents complaining non-stop about radar use (from PSP, or proposals for local police to use radar) and even when TV stations interview regular people on the issue, people usually either like it or are indifferent about it. I hear more complaints about people when they're asked their opinion about using a stopwatch or ENRADD to enforce speed than radar since most people in PA know that radar is more reliable on a whole. When people do have an issue with radar proposals, it's usually that they don't want municipalities to make too much money...it's not so much the radar concept itself.

[radarrob]

Municipal police in PA do need to be allowed to use radar. Give municipal police the ability to use stationary radar and give PSP the ability to use moving radar, all in one bill. It would make everyone happy and the ultimate goal is achieved.

Why would we want to do that? Oh yeah to write more stupid speeding tickets. Please. Which municipal do you work for again?

I don't see how anyone would support this bill passing. Sounds like the local cops in PA are just LAZY at enforcing the speed limits with the equipment they already have. What's next? Local municipals want to use Lidar to increase the safety? Load of BS.

Bacon stay away

[stano0098]

Just give both the local police and state police LIDAR, and call it a day . Don't give them radar, that's not legal to jam .

X2! That would make me happy.

[krypton2]

Just give both the local police and state police LIDAR, and call it a day . Don't give them radar, that's not legal to jam .

X2! That would make me happy.

x3. I don't think anyone would mind that.