Posted on 11/24/2005 8:20:18 PM PST by sickoflibs
To combat the high volume of speeders through residential areas, Howard County police are sharing some of the responsibility for identifying those speeders with the people they believe know those areas best: the residents. Through the department's Speed Monitoring and Radar Team (SMART) program, citizens are getting the opportunity to wield radar guns and record tag numbers in an effort to slow speeders and make their neighborhoods safer.
Howard County police officials began the program in 1998, after seeing the success of the SMART program in Montgomery County.
Community action "It is a community response to a community program so that they can address the problem before the police are involved," said Howard County police Officer Brandon Justice who taught the program two years ago. According to an analysis released by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration in June, 32 percent of all traffic-related fatalities were caused by speeding, and fatalities on local roads and in rural communities have significantly increased.
The purpose of the SMART program "is to use peer pressure to solve the problem," Justice said. "If you are driving down the road and you see your neighbor holding a [radar] unit you are less likely to go over the speed limit."
Justice said that participating residents stand near speed-limit signs with the radar guns.
"It takes about an hour and a half to learn how to use the radar unit," Justice said. "We have set classes where people can come and learn how to use it and what they should do."
Letters written Participants turn in tag numbers of speeders to police, who write letters to car owners alerting them to the violation
(Excerpt) Read more at baltimoresun.com ...
Reply #60
I wish we had a program like that up here. The first 25 tickets I would issue would be to the Connecticut State Troopers whom I have NEVER seen drive the speed limit.
sounds like police everywhere. i went so far one time as to follow a cop down the highway doing 20 over. he finally switched lanes, hit his brakes and got behind me. he asked me what i thought i was doing, and my reply was, "if you can break the law, why can't i?" he made some comment about reckless driving, and i replied i would gladly take any ticket if he would issue himself the same one. he laughed and asked why he should do that. i told him if he didn't, i would ask the judge when i went to fight the ticket why the police are above the law. then i started writing down his name, badge number, the time and date, where we were..
he ended up stalking off and not giving me the ticket.
worse is my city police, who seem to be the most ineffective law enforcement ever. they spend most of their time issuing revenue generating tickets. making stops for 1mph over (literally) and issuing citations for too long of grass, too many leaves, cars parked on lawns, one of my friends even got a ticket for not having his sidewalk shoveled by 10am.
"Footnote: Montgomery County MD is the most liberal county in Maryland, followed by Howard County."
10-15 years ago HC was conservative Republican except Columbia MD. Now we are invaded by Kerry voters (and immigrants) who demand endless local tax increases, many are high paid government contractors getting rich off homeland security and other govmt spending, looking down at the Red States. Of course their research is very important to this country, ask Kerry. They want federal taxes to go up like with our county taxes. With them they bring crowded schools and clogged roads.
Everything you say may be true, but I fail to see how it justifies speeding through someone else's residential neighbourhood. I generally have a healthy disregard for speed limits but in residential subdivisions you'll generally find me driving well below the defacto (not posted) speed limit of 50 km/h (30 mph).
Driving through neighborhoods is not ideal. You can get stuck behind someone who is not in a hurry. But after being stuck in stop and go traffic jams for the Nth time I finally got fed up and mapped my way through the neighborhoods.
Unfortunately real estate development is like immigration. Once you open up the floodgates the new people have no sense of what things were like before they got there(room in the schools, low taxes, roads to drive to work) , so they support even more, no matter what the cost or effects.
I did not read that the neighborhood residents were being forced to participate. If the neighbors want to help police the place where they live, what wrong with that?
You don't like speed limits? Change it. I don't like drivers speeding through my neighborhood where the kids play. Do you really want to wait until somebody gets hit?
Not through my neighborhood.
"People can swerve to get out of my way. That is just the cops power-tripping, man."
So you don't see ANY problem with allowing anybody to check out a radar gun and issue "warnings" to whomever they decide they don't like? I bet if a DUmmie did it and started issuing "warnings" to anybody with a W bumpersticker, you'd not be so cavalier about it...
Cops are, by and large, honest people who administer justice fairly. Can you say that about the rest of the population "assuming" AJP roles?
On my 30 mph street? Don't think so.
Sheesh
If the police will let me roll a spike strip in front of cars speeding through the neighborhood, I'll volunteer for double shifts.
What kind of place do you live in where you can fire at a moving vehicle and get away with it? Shoot someone's tires out in this state, and you're going to prison for a long, long, long time.
Exactly the mentality that causes accidents. It's never the kid you see that gets hit. You should always assume there are kids YOU DON'T SEE playing on any residential street. So, on a residential street there is never an "IF" kids are playing, it an "ALWAYS" kids are playing.
That varies from state to state. Police in Texas and Coloado can issue tickets for infractions they do not witness. That much I'm sure of.
"If the police will let me roll a spike strip in front of cars speeding through the neighborhood, I'll volunteer for double shifts."
I appreciate your frustration but that will work even less effectively than warnings with the radar gun. HC tried those traffic control islands in the middle of the street and the plows could not get through and people drove on the lawns. Speeders are the symptom, over development is the problem. I would rather use the main roads.
Hallway monitors grow up to be busybodies holding radar guns. We still need to beat them up.
"Hallway monitors grow up to be busybodies holding radar guns. We still need to beat them up."
Well I was thinking more of a certain hand signal as I drive by. Or it might be fun to park nearby and watch them, put the shoe on the other foot.
Interesting, I live one and a half blocks from a middle school, and twice a day I see those same speed demons, and almost to a man they are women in (evil) SUVs dropping off or picking up their kids at the school. It amazes me that so many can be so rude and dangerously inconsiderate in driving and parking around the school and residential area, but then I (to my dismay) live in the most socialist/leftist area in America. Apparently progressive feminist moms have the right of way.
What part of safley did you not understand? If your 30 mph street is unsafe at high speeds then speeding would be overdriving the conditions and stupid. It is just that a lot of speed limits are arbitrary and people do drive what ever speed they feel comfortable. It is a shame that neighborhood streets are getting rush hour traffic.
However I have seen neighborhoods that do not have speeders and high traffic. But the old folk don't like anybody driving at a rational speed. It seems that they like 15 mph and feel uncomfortable at higher speeds. The folks ask for a cop to give out tickets. The cops don't find speeders doing 20 over the speed limit so they start ticketing drivers who do 3-5 mph over the speed limit.
I just feel as a free people that are capable of governing ourselves that most drivers drive at a safe and comfortable speeds. Of course that is excluding teenage males just starting. However that stage thankfully they grow out of. However it seems that a lot of people here do not think that Americans are capable to drive rationally and must have arbitrary limits set.
I have gotten quite of bit a flack over this issue. But think do you want to start people spying on other people on traffic laws to turn them in? That is not the type of people I want to live with. No trust and common sense.
I see that that type of thinking leads to a police state. And this is over minor issues like traffic speeds.
And remember we are on Free Republic!!!
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