We should not presume that exceeding a posted speed limit is a significant safety issue. [Re: MV Worst Speed Trap City]
Great Britain’s roads are infested with thousands of speed cameras generating millions of tickets to hapless motorists. In spite of this massive “safety” program, statistics clearly show that highway fatalities per mile were decreasing before the cameras were planted, and that this rate of decrease has slowed since.
A study in Canada (”Is Speed Killing Us?”) concludes that the greater percentage of accidents were from drivers going under the posted limit. The safest group were drivers traveling about 9 mph over the posted limit. Auto Insurance Companies raise rates based on DMV points earned from traffic tickets. One point may almost double your premiums for three years.
Radar/Lidar guns donated to traffic cops by insurance companies are a great money maker. Insurance company charts show radar guns handed out to enforcers begin turning a profit for them after only a few months. So many speed guns were given to enforcers by one company that they are known as “gekko guns.”
I’m not really bitter about this; I haven’t had a ticket in years and no one should mind a well-deserved ticket. It’s just all this safety propaganda that bugs me. Let’s all be considerate of our fellow motorists and maybe we can survive with fewer traffic police hiding in the bushes.
Joseph Durkin
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Hopefully this informed letter puts to rest any notion that speed traps provide safety. Speed traps are specifically designed to create traffic tickets with places for officers to hide with abnormally low speed limits. This is big revenue for the city, but as Joseph says, for personal auto insurance carriers as well as reasons to jack up individual rates. The same way, the scandal heaped on intersection cameras to catch red-light violations exposed how yellow-light timing is reduced to catch more autos in the red.
One well-intentioned Mission Viejo mom’s comment from the first article pointed to speeding on Marguerite Pkwy. There is no place for officers to hide there so a speed trap won’t help. It is much better to keep police units visible on the parkways to deter speeders and be watchful of potential crime or dangerous situations of all types.
Speed traps on the parkways do nothing to deter speeding on residential streets in the subdivisions. Speed bumps are the only answer to neighbors’ recklessness. Hopefully those calling for more speed traps on the parkways will insist the city install strategically placed speed bumps on notoriously dangerous straightaways in the subvidisons.
A great and informative letter!
As much as I generally enjoy Allan’s posts, the one above and the letter it responds to put forth simply ridiculous arguments. The Canadian study quoted is an example of how one can find data to support just about anything so long as one modifies the parameters enough to exclude all data that would disprove the point.
A conclusion that drivers who violate the speed limits are actually better, is – in one word – ludicrous, forgive my English. IF that were true, then I have a great recipe for making drivers safer. All we would need to do is lower the speed limit around town by 10 mph and we would have at least doubled if not tripled the size of that group.
But as lowering the speed limit would also move our “safe” drivers’ a-ticket-wouldn’t-be-too-expensive-range into an actually safer speed zone and so might turn our wanna-be racedrivers into – at least – somewhat safe drivers. To prove the point, traffic over this past weekend along Marguerite was a lot less speedy, noisy and stressful if not to say pleasant for all participants because all knew that police would stop motorists anytime, anywhere. It was amazing. Almost like someone flipped a switch on Friday. Trouble was though, this morning before rush-hour the switch was flipped again and the picture was back to the ugly normal with motorists racing each other on the way to work in the morning and and trying to hitch a ride in the trunk of the car in front of them on the way home at night. Makes me wonder why our deputies don’t always threaten with stops and checkpoints. Or even better, there should be surprise checkpoints on a regular basis so that motorists would have an incentive to always behave themselves.
That said, however, I must say that in no way do I believe the OCSD’s current efforts are even remotely sufficient to keep motorists even somewhat close to the California Motor Vehicle Code. Sadly this is true even though we pay record amounts for our police services. But as our deputies themselves blatantly violate the laws the argument must be made that they have lost all credibility and are apparently not interested in holding up the laws of the land. This has gone so far that I believe they should be sent back to school, be better supervised, and punished for their violations of the law. A law that includes the CA Motor Vehicle Code. Joe’s speed-trapping motorcycle cop hiding on the sidewalk and in the bushes is an example for only the smallest problem I have personally observed.
Other examples are the following:
- Deputies assigned to Mission Viejo are among the worst tailgaters and speeders – I regular observe speeds of greater than 60 mph by deputies whether they’re responding to an emergency or not.
- They drive down one-way streets the wrong way – observed just again last night- and
_ They speed down parking lots at excessive speeds with the only possible benefit derived being a couple of extra seconds on pay hidden away from the public and their duties in a back parking lot or on a break.
- Hiding in a back parking lot away from their duties and the public while on pay – this custom being essentially equal to employee fraud.
Better training, supervision and incentives such as docking of pay for such offenses should be among the consequences implemented for all employees of the OCSD whether assigned to Mission Viejo or elsewhere. For the amounts we pay we should be entitled to a police force that respects the law and aims to do right by the community it serves.
I mentioned this article to my wife and she said we are lucky we don’t live in the Phoenix area. She travels there on business a few times a year. They have radar/cameras on the freeways and major roads that record the license number and send you a ticket. If you have a rental car you’ll just get a charge on your credit card.