Just put up a photo of a White Cherokee
Posted on 01/01/2020 6:13:07 PM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
After years of concern about the number of traffic accidents that occur in road construction zones, Pennsylvania is doing something about it.
Beginning Jan. 4, the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation and Pennsylvania Turnpike will begin a 60-day pilot program to formally test what’s called the Automated Work Zone Speed Enforcement program. The program is designed to cause drivers to slow down in construction areas by setting up speed monitoring equipment in work areas.
After the pilot program is finished, the two state agencies expect to deploy private contractors in white Jeep Cherokee SUVs at various sites throughout the state to monitor speed beginning March 4. If the monitors detect someone going more than 11 miles an hour over the speed limit, the motorist will receive a notice by mail with a warning for the first violation, followed by a $75 fine for a second offense and $150 for each future ticket.
The incidents will be treated as civil violations and no points will be added to a driver’s license.
“From our standpoint, we aren’t trying to make this an ‘I got you’ situation,” said Dan Farley, chief of transportation systems management and operations for PennDOT. “We’re trying to address the egregious speeding in our work zones.”
The new program was authorized by the Legislature in 2018, but its history dates back much further. A report in 2012 by the state Transportation Advisory Committee recommended similar steps to control speeding in work zones.
The concern is obvious in accident statistics: In 2018, there were 2,804 accidents in work zones across Pennsylvania that resulted in 23 fatalities. Forty-three percent of those accidents resulted in injuries. Since 1970, 89 PennDOT workers have died in traffic accidents in work zones and 45 turnpike employees have died since 1945.
(Excerpt) Read more at post-gazette.com ...
Not much seems to have changed, according to my own observations. PA also has drastically lower speed limits than neighboring states.
>>deploy private contractors in white Jeep Cherokee SUVs at various sites throughout the state to monitor speed beginning March 4. If the monitors detect someone going more than 11 miles an hour over the speed limit, the motorist will receive a notice by mail with a warning for the first violation, followed by a $75 fine for a second offense and $150 for each future ticket.
Sick and tired of the outsourced politically connected money train. PUT LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICIALS in the jeep.
Follow the money, those sending the tickets are probably making up to 50% on the fines.
If they were really interested in safety, the state would be suspending driver’s licenses after the first violation.
I don’t agree with speed cameras anywhere . . except in construction zones. The way some people speed through them, in spite of the barriers, any workers present and the narrower lanes, is insane. They simply don’t give a sh*t.
If you want to know what stupidity in a construction zone can cause, just ask oldvirginian about what he witnessed on the Borman Expressway in Indiana. His story is what convinced me to start driving the posted speed in construction zones.
isn’t that like giving a home owner a ticket because their house was robbed?
Just put up a photo of a White Cherokee
Agreed. There really should be points in a work zone.
There should be suspensions for violations in a work zone.
Why stop at construction zones? Why not have this monitoring equipment on every inch of the roadways? No one could ever speed anywhere without that $150 fine coming automatically.
Is she still parked on the side of a road?
Agreed, standing around anywhere near traffic is very dangerous. I’ve worked as a safety official for road races with cars going triple digit speeds a few feet away. I believe regular traffic is more dangerous. Professional drivers focused on driving are less of a threat than distracted drivers.
So if they would make the construction zones just large enough to get the work done with a small safety margin then people would be far less inclined to speed through them.
I want to emphasize here in the DFW area this problem is far worse than I have described. On any one day there are hundreds of miles of blocked lanes with actual construction happening in just a fraction of a percent of that area.
Once again we are facing more laws to solve a problem caused by government.
Exactly. I was doing 9 over the other day and saw the light flash behind me. I assume someone else got tagged.
It’s for the most part another money grab.
I have to say this expensive stupidity exemplifies why government is considered incompetent.
No, not potentially.
As an absolute.
Always parked in front of a porta pottie
For real.
Anyone in Virginia, please ignore this post. You might faint.
I have a radar detector. The Escort/Passport 9500Ci. It also has the “Jammers” (Which aren’t jammers at all) and the extra bands that radar uses.
Did you know that in the US they could put up a $40 emitter that tells my radar specific details about road hazards ?
The circuitry in my radar detector that does that is very, very simple. It’s actually the same exact tech in the proximity sensors that all the new cars seem to have.
Cars and manufacturers - As well as states and the like - can easily deploy these units about a buck a piece to put in all cars to signal construction zones, road hazards - heck you can even deploy your own hazard with a unit.
It’s not easy to get all of these devices into cars. I’m not going to say it is. But it seems that after awhile the US made backup cameras mandatory and these little road warning units are less of a cost. St Louis uses these systems all the time and let me tell you how cool it is to drive down the road and have your detector tell you “Construction in 1000 ft. Rt lane closed” and be able to adjust accordingly.
But you see the government, state or federal, is NEVER interested in improving people’s lives. A system like this would cost as much as those jeeps and save more lives. Send it out with new EZPasses. Advertise. Get people to like the laws instead of fear them.
But no, Government shows time and time again it has no interest in protecting people. Only controlling them.
I have no problem with Pennsylvania doing this, because they are realistic about their work zones, and do not abuse the designation.
New Jersey, on the other hand, puts speed restricted work zones all over the place, even if no work is taking place. The sign is there, but there are no cones, no trucks, no workers... Nothing but a bigger ticket if you get caught.
People just ignore the signs, because almost all of them are meaningless. Then when there is a real work zone, it is mayhem, because nobody is following the signs.
The Pennsylvania state tree is the traffic cone.
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