Posted on 11/03/2003 12:35:43 PM PST by SheLion
KENNEBUNK — Some of the workers with neon orange vests on the side of the Maine Turnpike aren't plotting property lines. They're undercover state police officers, clocking the speeds of cars in an aggressive effort to get drivers to slow down. Crying foul won't get violators out of the resulting speeding ticket.
"It's not entrapment, it's just unconventional enforcement," said Lt. Randall Nichols of Troop G, the branch of the Maine State Police in charge of patrolling the turnpike.
The Maine Turnpike Authority, state police, and contractors working on a project to widen the highway have tried a variety of methods to slow traffic during the past few years.
They've included sending fliers reminding electronic toll customers to drive the speed limit, using pace vehicles driving side-by-side in construction zones to keep drivers from exceeding 50 mph, and freeing up state troopers to devote 40 hours a week to speed-limit enforcement.
At first, individual troopers worked eight hours a day, five days a week enforcing speed limits.
But state police found a more efficient method, which puts a team of four to five troopers on the road together, three days each week.
The plan involves disguise. One method involves a trooper wearing an orange vest, with a laser gun - which is more accurate than a radar gun - atop a camera tripod.
Another scenario may involve a nondescript vehicle pulled off the side of the road with hazard lights blinking. Instead of stranded motorists, the vehicle contains troopers working the radar gun and police radio.
One officer works the radar, and the other radios the make, model, speed and lane of a vehicle to a team of "chase vehicles" lined up, out of view, on the side of the highway or on-ramps.
Troopers in the chase vehicles take turns pulling over cars and trucks, writing tickets, and returning to the end of the line to repeat the drill again.
During the first 30 minutes of a detail last Thursday in Kennebunk, troopers pulled over 10 drivers.
They included an Isuzu Trooper with a kayak rack going 79 mph; a red Jetta with New Hampshire plates doing 77 mph, and a van with contractor racks clipping along at 83 mph.
Trooper Charles Granger, who recorded the speeds called out by Cpl. Edmund Furtado, described the morning as slow.
"Memorial Day weekend, we worked Exit 6 northbound with a construction facade. We had 10 troopers on the off-ramps, and pulled over 100 vehicles in four hours," he said.
The driver of a green minivan, who was clocked by Furtado at 82 mph, never knew how close he came to a $201 fine and six points on his driver's license.
The vehicle information was radioed to the five troopers ahead, but all were busy with prior traffic stops.
"At 82 miles per hour, we had to let him go," Granger said.
Using unmarked cruisers to pull over speeders is nothing new. Dressing up as construction workers or surveyors is, at least in Maine, Nichols says.
Nichols says he knows of police agencies in California, Florida and Maryland that target vehicles in a similar way.
Drivers don't realize the unmarked cars and plainclothed officers are police, and don't hit the brakes as they might if they saw a uniformed trooper or a marked cruiser on the side of the road, Nichols says.
"We're able to target very high-speed drivers and habitual offenders," he said.
Drivers who stopped at the Exit 4 service plaza Thursday didn't have a problem with the method.
Kittery Point resident Phil Downs said he has a son who drives, and wants the roads as safe as possible.
"I think it's great. It's time to get people to slow down. And if they stop people for drinking and driving, even better," Downs said.
Abbot resident Vance Ginn said he hopes the method will cut down the number of construction workers or surveyors hit by cars each year.
His friend and fellow Abbot resident Mark Dinkins said he hopes the police end up pulling over drivers who travel at speeds up to 100 mph.
"It is kind of sneaky, but it's a good thing. I'd probably have a different attitude about that if they stopped me, though," he said.
Staff Writer Grace Murphy can be contacted at 282-8228 or at: gmurphy@pressherald.com
Trooper Charles Granger writes down information about a car that Cpl. Edmund Furtado, in the back of the van, has just clocked for speeding. Granger radios the speed and a description of the car to state troopers who are waiting up the highway.
In the back of an unmarked van with tinted windows, Cpl. Edmund Furtado of the Maine State Police aims a radar gun on vehicles traveling in the northbound lane of the Maine Turnpike on Thursday. The undercover detail netted 10 speeders in the first half-hour.
Don't do the crime if you can't pay the fine. Simple enough.
The entire 1,000 car wolfpack you are in is going 80!
Until you catch up to some blue-hair who can barely see over the dashboard of her Medicare Monster, and you're down to 35...
On the east coast, the slowpokes continually stop the wolfpack, forcing everybody to brake and get around.
I only drive 64 MPH.
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