Residents accuse police chief in Florida of laying speed traps that hurt business

Houston Chronicle ^ | 12-20-02 | Ron Word

[babaloo999]

WALDO, Fla. -- Some residents of this northern Florida town are beginning to think their
police chief might be getting too successful busting speeders.

Business leaders, who are embroiled in a bitter war of words with the law-and-order
chief, say he is hurting business because people are too scared to risk driving through
Waldo's speed traps.

For Chief A.W. Smith, there is no compromise. "Slow down and see our city
or speed up and see our judge," he said.

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/story.hts/nation/1709826

[babaloo999]

Ok, I used to rail against the evil hick town speed traps. I keep it in
the 75-80 range on the highway/interstate, however, I keep it at a reaonable
speed going through towns like this. Not because I'm scared of getting a ticket, but
because of safety concerns depending on pedestrian traffic, etc. It's a safety
thing, eh. How many people do you see hauling *** through a parking lot, for crying out loud?
Slow your dumb ***es down, I say. I try to give pointers on driver etiquette,
but it's definitely an uphill battle.
GO CUBS!

[babaloo999]

</rant>

[KarlInOhio]

If the police chief is really more interested in safety than in revenue, then he wouldn't mind the business owners putting up billboards just outside of town that says:

Warning! Speed trap ahead! Don't let the cops profit from your speed.

I have a suspicion that the cops would not find that solution acceptable.

[APBaer]

"Where's Waldo?" is a question asked far and wide.
Now I know.

[nothingnew]

"Where's Waldo"?

FMCDH

[nothingnew]

badda-bing!

FMCDH

[billbears]

My next vacation spot

[freeeee]

If Waldo really didn't want speeders, they would take the money from speeding tickets and spend it on re-routing 301 around their town.

Instead they spend the money on new police cars.

Actions speak louder than words.

[I still care]

I drive through Waldo all the time. It is a royal pain. Yes, there is a populated center of town in the middle of a busy route, and people should slow down going through such areas, but Waldo is scary. The limits go from 30 to 40 to 50 to 60 and back constantly. People are afraid to go 1 mile over the speed limit. And it is so LONG. There is no other main road through that area of Florida.

[lelio]

Here's how the local law explains it:
"We practice in-your-face law enforcement," said Smith, whose officers issue about 17 citations a day, a tiny fraction of the 37,000 cars a day that pass through town on the way to Gainesville or Jacksonville. "If we were really a speed trap," Smith said, "we would write 100 tickets a day."
I'm against speed traps, but it sounds like the guy is just enforcing the laws. People should get the speeds changed then, as if you're only pulling over certain people then it is selective enforcement (and I bet a majority of them aren't Florida residents).
But the guy's excuse of only writting 17 a day vs 100 is more of an issue of manpower. Sounds like they don't have that many cops to write those tickets.
If 1/4 of their $1.1M budget comes from tickets then the average price per ticket is (1.1M/4) / (17*365) = $45.

[babaloo999]

It says later in the article that the average daily ticket hand-out is 17. That doesn't sound like a huge thing.
I know there's 'good' days and they make up for it on others. I'm a veteran of
a few defensive driving classes, and they always tell you to slow down
in these small towns. I don't understand why people can't heed a speed limit sign in town.
It's not as if I never speed through any towns, I just try to keep it in my pants in populated areas.

[lelio]

Thanks for your post, didn't know the area was like that and I'm against the constant fluctuation of speeds. Same thing up here in eastern WA where the long and twisty roads go straight through cities of a couple hundred people. Scared poopless that I'll get stopped.
And I agree with the article's citing of the person that refuses to stop in Waldo due to the practice. But only regulars know that, and the ignorant masses end up paying the Waldo Fee.

[Hank Rearden]

Waldo is scary. The limits go from 30 to 40 to 50 to 60 and back constantly. People are afraid to go 1 mile over the speed limit. And it is so LONG. There is no other main road through that area of Florida.

There are many, SO many, reasons to never live in, nay - travel to, parts east of Nevada.

[babaloo999]

It depends, do they have a WalMart in Waldo? If so, then no amount of prodding will keep the shoppers away.

[babaloo999]

Make that a Super Wally world.

[freeeee]

it sounds like the guy is just enforcing the laws

Waldo knows that there is only one way to get to Jacksonville from Gainesville, and that road is 65 mph before their town and 55 mph after their town.

They know sending traffic from that road directly through the center of their town will pose a speeding risk.

They also know re-routing that road around the center of town would prevent people from speeding through town.

But they also know that all but a very few houses pay no property tax due a combination of low value housing and the Florida Homestead law (property tax exemption for the first $40,000? worth of property) and that they need the speeding revenue or their town will go broke.

They are putting new fancy police cars above the safety of their residents.

Of course because of their purposeful choice to keep routing a high speed divided highway through the town center, they can claim to be "just enforcing the law" when the speeders they chose to bring there show up.

I just wonder how they can say that with a strait face.

[Chemist_Geek]

Of course because of their purposeful choice to keep routing a high speed divided highway through the town center, they can claim to be "just enforcing the law" when the speeders they chose to bring there show up.

I don't know how you can write that with a straight face. Speeding is a decision the drivers make when they're operating their vehicles, whether their speed is set manually or by the cruise control.

IF the town is marked and there is a reasonable gradient (not a 65-to-25 in 1000 feet, for instance), THEN the speedsters have no one but themselves to blame for their tickets. If the limits are set too low, then that's a political issue for the town council or whoever has jurisdiction over the roads there.

[jsraggmann]

The Florida Homestead exemption is on the first 25k, not 40k. And besides, why would anyone want to go to gatorville?

[SamAdams76]

I think that biggest problem is that our speed limits are set too low. If they had more reasonable speed limits - say 80mph on interstate highways and 65mph on state highways, more people would be in compliance. And roads would be safer too (less people tailgating and getting frustrated).