PA - Police Reveal Top Speed Traps in Pittsburgh (video)

**krypton2** · 10-30-2010, 06:36 PM

http://www.wpxi.com/target11/25505642/detail.html

WPXI just did a story similar to this probably 3 months ago, I guess this is the update/sequel.

There's some decent Robic stopwatch and VASCAR footage in the video, as well as a few traffic stops.

**Solidjake** · 10-30-2010, 08:20 PM

Thanks for the info!

**SpeedingVolvo** · 11-10-2010, 10:11 AM

"It's a 25 mile per hour zone. They are not being written at 35, 45 miles per hour. Its 45, 50 and above," said Micklos."Don't let me even have the money. Every tag I write, send it to the Little Sisters of the Poor. I don't care what you do with it. I don't need it to generate revenue. But let me use radar."

It's funny that no law has been proposed to say something like: "Let the locals use radar, but for every radar ticket issued they get NONE of the ticket revenue." All the bills try to mitigate the revenue issue by only letting the locals keep PART of the money...

I wonder if a local radar bill would pass if it was written like this.

**krypton2** · 11-10-2010, 02:37 PM

Originally Posted by SpeedingVolvo

"It's a 25 mile per hour zone. They are not being written at 35, 45 miles per hour. Its 45, 50 and above," said Micklos."Don't let me even have the money. Every tag I write, send it to the Little Sisters of the Poor. I don't care what you do with it. I don't need it to generate revenue. But let me use radar."

It's funny that no law has been proposed to say something like: "Let the locals use radar, but for every radar ticket issued they get NONE of the ticket revenue." All the bills try to mitigate the revenue issue by only letting the locals keep PART of the money...

I wonder if a local radar bill would pass if it was written like this.

I'm...not sure. The money issue isn't the whole problem with letting local police use radar. It's something that is easy to bring up but really doesn't hold total significance when you look deep down into the radar issue.

There's a reason that *only* state police can use radar and local police must use devices that take longer to operate. On the same token, there's a reason that the state police have never gotten the "new technology" like moving radar or LIDAR...if they did, then local police would have the ability to push even more for stationary radar use since state police would get something better to use and local police wouldn't.

The amount of money that police departments receive from your average speeding ticket is so minimal that it really takes a lot of citations to make a noticeable amount of money. In all honesty, if money is needing to be made then they could use school zones. Police departments can easily make $250 on every school zone citation issued, as opposed to $20-$40 from regular speeding citations. And in reality, school zone enforcement is easier to do as well...since the speed limit is 15 mph, most cars are going relatively slow so the time it takes them to get over a specified distance is lower than if you were in a 35 mph zone, for instance. The longer it takes for the car to go over the two lines, the more accurate (potentially) the time measurement would be. You don't even need radar to do that.

**SpeedingVolvo** · 11-11-2010, 08:30 AM

Originally Posted by krypton2

Police departments can easily make $250 on every school zone citation issued, as opposed to $20-$40 from regular speeding citations.

Holy crap... how much is a School Zone speeding ticket?! I'm sure glad I never got one of those!

**krypton2** · 11-11-2010, 03:37 PM

Originally Posted by SpeedingVolvo

Originally Posted by krypton2

Police departments can easily make $250 on every school zone citation issued, as opposed to $20-$40 from regular speeding citations.

Holy crap... how much is a School Zone speeding ticket?! I'm sure glad I never got one of those!

$500 base fine, plus costs. $584.50 in most counties, but it depends...each county can have different court costs, so that amount should be accurate within about $10 state-wide.

The police department gets half of the base fine and the other half goes to PennDOT, which places it in a general fund that funds the state police and road maintenance. So that's $250 to each.

That's if you're going 11 or more over the school speed limit (15 mph). So you have to be going 26mph or higher...which isn't very high in reality. School zone enforcement is different too...it's an exception to the "10-over" rule that municipal police have to follow with electronic timing devices. Using VASCAR/ENRADD/stopwatch/etc. in a school zone, an officer can stop for 6mph over or higher as opposed to 10mph over in regular speed zones. So if you're going 21mph or higher you can be stopped. The fine for 6-over to 10-over is in the $120-$150 range. The fine for 11-over and higher can be either the normal fine (again, in the $150 range) or a max of $500...I've never seen the regular fine used, it's always the $500 amount.