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 ...
I agree the signs for Waldo are now obvious. They’re still scum. As for Hampton, that is where I got my ticket as I stated in my original post.
One my way to work each morning, I see the cop cars in the bushes, sitting in the pre-dawn darkness with their donuts and their radar guns.
This is especially infuriating as all the welfare bums are home sleeping and I'm up at 5 in the morning so that I can work my tail off to keep those bums in Doritos, daytime television (on a big screen), cigarettes and malt liquor. Now on top of that I have to deal with traffic cops looking to write me $100 tickets, not to mention years of insurance surcharges.
They say it's about the "public safety" but if they were really concerned about that, they'd be patrolling the highways, going after the jerks who tailgate, shift lanes constantly and otherwise drive aggressively. But no, they would prefer to hide in the bushes and harass a working man who might be going 48mph in a 40mph zone but is just trying to get to his job.
Meanwhile the layabouts and the welfare set get to relax at home.
Harrington, DE raises 110% of it’s Police Dept. budget by being a speed trap on US 13.
Yep. You mentioned Waldo so I figured I’d have my chance to clue in a few folks on the distinction. The other town in the 301 chain of speed traps is just north of Starke called Lawtey.
> 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.
You got to be kidding me? Sorry but humans aren’t robots unless, of course, it means revenue for a city that is so horribly mismanaged it HAS to bleed taxpayers dry to stay alive. If that’s the case, shut the city down. If I were a sitting judge I would have thrown out every single ticket that LEO wrote that was under 5 miles over the spped limit, maybe 10...
Bahstids! Hampton, Lawtey, Baldwin. Thieves. Scoundrels.
Gotcha. That whole area stinks.
That was stupid. Should have dissolved them as an example.
During this present Obama Depression, you’re seeing more and more speed traps, Cameras at stoplights, etc. The tax base is shrinking, and police won’t let you go one mile an hour over the speed limit.
I was going through Raymond, WA about 28 years ago and paranoid about getting a speeding ticket in a small town. I was careful not to go one mile over throughout the town, not adjusting my speed to higher limits until I actually passed the new sign.
The speed went from 55 to 45, to 35, to 25, to 35, 45 and back to 55. As I was in the last 45 mph zone, I noticed a cop following me and just as I was reaching the edge of town he hit the blues. He told me I had been doing 50 in the 35. I proceeded to tell him exactly what the speed limits were throughout the town and each place they changed and I was painstakingly careful to not speed by even one mph through the entire town.
He didn’t write me a ticket and let me go.
There still ARE a host of speed traps in the South.
There was a place similar in a town far away. Same tactics. Long hill w/ curve at the bottom, 55 mph down to 35 mph around this curve in short order.
The local Barney Fife would sit at the curve and pounce on people passing through.
One early, peaceful and tranquil morning before sunrise a couple of pounds of roofing nails were misplaced in the area where Barney would hide his cruiser.
Public morale improved shortly thereafter. Message received.
Don’t forget Lawtey, FL.
In my town of roughly 300k there are only two main east/west corridors. One was four lanes and one is six. They cut down the four lanes to a meandering brick two lane road with bike path and lots of expensive plants and medians. The speed limit is 25. If you go 32 you get a ticket. (I think it’s $250.) I’ve actually seen them stop people at 30 (because they were right behind me and keeping an even distance.) But supposedly you can’t write a ticket until it’s seven miles over the limit. They have a bunch of 18 year old cops on this route and I suspect they hired them only to write tickets and nothing else.
This has wildly increased traffic on the 6 lane road. At an open meeting the commission tried to reduce that road from 6 lanes to two bike/walking lanes (there are sidewalks on both sides) and two bus and high occupancy car lanes and two traffic lanes. The stated purpose was to “force everybody to use the bus.” (The buses largely run empty. People complained so much they bought busses you can’t see into.)
This town has two universities and four lower level schools, it has a county government, a city government, it’s the state capitol and there are lots of federal offices. This town has NEVER elected a Republican. The current mayor is an out and out communist.
Society Hill, South Carolina has one of the worst I have ever known. This is a tiny village in the middle of nowhere in an area of rather flat land and when you leave on Hwy. 52 going North to Cheraw you head down a fairly steep hill where you must literally ride the brake to avoid a speeding ticket. The cop sits at the bottom of the hill where someone coming down the hill is guaranteed to exceed the speed limit unless he has his foot on the brake. This speed trap has been notorious for many decades but the town officials would swear that there is no speed trap in their town.
Know that road , Was warned before the first trip many years-ago
Last time I went through Waldo was about 1999 or 2000.
I don’t agree that it is a speed “trap”. At least going north (can’t recall regards going south). A trap is a setup where it is unreasonably easy to speed and that is used to ticket for ridiculous infractions. Going north it is so well marked and they make it abundantly clear one will get nailed, that IMO one is paying insufficiently safe attention to their driving if they speed there. Nobody is “trapping” anyone going northbound.
“I was a highwayman
Along the coach roads, I did ride
with sword and pistol by my side”
Willie Nelson
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