Posted on 03/30/2014 3:29:39 AM PDT by kingattax
A tiny northern Florida city that received national notoriety for issuing thousands of speeding tickets on its funky stretch of highway will be spared from death.
State lawmakers Friday dropped their threat to dissolve Hampton, a 1-square-mile city located an hour's drive south of Jacksonville.
Auditors in February reported that the small cadre of officials in the city of about 500 residents mismanaged the city's bank accounts, credit cards and collections. The city had just three full-time employees: a clerk, a police chief and a water manager.
Most egregiously, city officials discovered an intriguing revenue stream shortly after annexing a quarter-mile stretch of U.S. Highway 301 about 20 years ago.
The square-shaped city turned into a comical fly-swatter, sticking out to reach a business near the highway that wanted to be protected by city police. Realizing it could capitalize on drivers making the trek in and out of Jacksonville, the city slowly grew a volunteer police force and caught motorists in its new speed trap.
During the last handful of years, that revenue stream ballooned to more than $200,000 annually, the Orlando Sentinel reported.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
Route 23 in new jersey has sections that exist solely to generate ticket revenue for a patchwork quilt of townships.
What exit?
>>”We are here to help to make sure there is no longer a government serving itself and not the people,” Bradley said. “We were going to remove the city if the people didn’t reform it.”<<
Get somebody, anybody to do this to Versailles on the Potomac. PLEASE.
Twenty years ago Florida’s Highway Patrol was a competent top-notch police organization. Today they exist solely to generate revenue. Anyplace in Florida where the speed drops ten miles an hour, usually, for no visible reason, is a speed trap. It’s not about safety, it’s about revenue.
I have lost all respect for these revenuers.
There used to be a whole host of speed traps in the South. There was an LEO who used to sit at the bottom of a I-85 hill in NC. Ludowici, GA used to ticket drivers going 26 MPH in a 25 MPH zone on US 301. Sanford and Kissimee, FL on US 17 were also bad speed traps.
I got a ticket from those scumbags the first time I went to Gainesville. They sit hidden at the light at 301 and 18. It’s one of those 65 then 55 then 45 dumps. This s***hole and Waldo should be burned and salted.
MEMORIES from the Fifties and Sixties!
My favorite Speed Trap, besides Hialeah Gardens in the late sixties.
Read and catch up on History with photos:
http://www.atlantatimemachine.com/misc/ludowici.htm
I had many stops by Ludowici and can say they always had a whiskey bottle at the Chiefs desk.
Governments once provided protection from highway robbers. Now they are the highway robbers.
Waldo has been known for years by the AAA as the #1 speed trap in the country. Sure it goes from 65 to 55 to 45 in a relatively short distance but over the past 10 years they have made the signs very obvious. The one that gets everyone is when going south, it does the 65-55-45 downturn right before the flea market light, goes back up to 55 and then almost immediately back down to 45 and then again to 35 going into the center of town.
I remember when there were billboards put up by the AAA warning drivers before the city limits of its impending enforcement.
Hampton is actually situated between Starke and Waldo just off 301 on 18. Different town, same bunch who learned from theeir buddies just down the highway.
I recall the drive from Kingsland Ga. to Voldosta was one tiny speed trap after another. You literally couldn’t go ONE mph over the posted 25, 30, 35 mph.
I know Michigan has its problems but fortunately speed traps don’t seem to be one of them. Probably due to the ubiquitous signs in MI that warn of a speed change just ahead. I live in a sort of touristy area that could easily rake in money hand over fist by doing this, but they don’t. there are plenty of citiots (city+idiot= citiot) they could put the serious butthurt on but don’t. I hope it’s enlightened self interest by the village councils.
CC
The sheriff on that piece of I-75 patrolled in a Pontiac Trans Am with a spider or eagle or something painted on the hood.
I was arrested for speeding on that road and was taken in to a big rambling old building with porches all around. There were lots of young men there several pleading to me for money for the fine. They had until midnite, I think, to come up with the cash or go to jail. Fortunately I had enough cash.
Tallulah Falls, Georgia, on Hwy 23/441 is a town of 168 souls. There’s a spot where you come down a hill around a curve and cross a bridge and the speed limit goes from 55 to 35 in a blink of an eye. Town police chief sits at the bottom of the hill.......waiting.
It’s a well traveled road. Goes north from Atlanta on up into Western North Carolina’s Smoky Mountains
I think the trucking industry would disagree. Michigan sets the speed limit on their Interstates at 60 mph knowing that most company owned semi's are governed at 62. They write thousands of tickets for one or two miles over the limit. Michigan is notorious for this.
This all reminds me of Kendleton, Tx. The Texas Attorney General’s office yanked their city charter back in the 80’s for being an incorrigible speed trap. When they looked into the city’s finances they discovered that the Chief of Police, the Mayor, and the Justice of the Peace, who all just happened to be in the same family, were simply pocketing most of the take.
“There was an LEO who used to sit at the bottom of a I-85 hill in NC.”
They’re sill there.
Sheriff’s in counties with interstates that are drug corridors have jumped on the profiling wagon and routinely pull out of state plates for “unsafe lane change” and bring in the dogs to sniff around. A couple of times a year they find enough drugs/cash/seizure material to fund the annual BBQ and buy new toys for the dept.
I was thinking more passenger vehicles than commercial vehicles, but you do have a point. That’s mostly the state police motor carrier division which does have a reputation for being kind of dick-ish.
CC
It’s not about safety, it’s about revenue.
I have lost all respect for these revenuers.
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