Speed limit enforcement

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Pablo

Pablo

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I know a lot of you want to know how to avoid speeding tickets, or get out of them.

But this is the other side....there are actually some areas that need a speed limit (hard to believe, I know).

I know there are no perfect answers - but what are some ways to assure that folks stay 35 in a 35 zone, etc. I'm open to all ideas, wild to mild, flataz stupid to pure genius. Ideas? Smart (speed sensing) missles? Cops on bungees? Signs shaped like cops? What have you seen around the world?

I'm trying to do the good citizen thing and help a Barney Fife police force.
 
back when they were widening the Maine Turnpike, speeding was such a problem in the construction zones that the contactor, MTA and state police resorted to pace trucks. they literally had several pairs of bright orange trucks with a huge "pace truck" sign on each. the trucks would pull out and get side by side and do the 45MPH speed limit through the zone. it worked quite well, far better than the massive conventional stop 'n ticket effort previous to the pace trucks.
 
speed bumps and timed traffic lights are the best way to enforce speed limit.

For high speed regulations on highway or freeway, just add some traffic by closing a lane or 2.
 
We use the painted lines in problem areas. It's mostly pyschological in effect. You only need about a week of a car sitting there (writing or not) ..and the rest is residual conditioned response. The main thing is not to enforce it when the conditions make speed a non-issue. The idea is public safety ..not obedience for the sake of obedience.


Most speeding in lower speed zones is not a conscious effort to speed. You're usually responding to the environment (traffic density). We have a 25 mph zone that really doesn't warrant it for a good bit of distance. They have fenced tennis courts that are part of The Hill School on either side of the road with very few places for pedestrians to enter the roadway. Nobody races through there when there are people around ..yet 35 is a very easy speed to attain. The cops pull a sting every Sept and write a bunch of tickets. They use the painted lines for (I assume) VASCAR+ (or some other method).
 
My personal opinion is that speed bumps or humps don't do anything to increase safety. Sure, they reduce the driver's speed (average speed at least). But instead of the driver focusing on his surroundings, his eyes are now focused exclusively on the speed bump ahead.
 
Pennsylvania has a bunch of those road construction signs that have a radar gun or transmitter hung underneath broadcasting twenty four hours a day. Basically they set off every radar detector for 1/2 mile or more around it. Anyone with a radar detector thinks the bears are right around the corner. It is funny where they place these signs. Like just in front of a overpass, or way off to side where you can't see it until you are right on top of the unit. Just at the end of a curve is another favorite place to park one.
One of the local departments by me has a dummy dressed in police uniform that they park in a marked patrol car on the side of the road. They of course park it right in front of the Vascar lines painted on the road.
 
My street has a kid under 5 years old at 95% of the houses. I guess we have to wait until someone clicks by at 50MPH and kills a child because they were too bothered to wait at a stop light (which the track through our neighborhood actually adds time to the total commute - but are too stupid to figure that out).
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sorry Lou, I botched your post in error, Joe

[ July 20, 2006, 09:47 PM: Message edited by: joee12 ]
 
I live in a residential area with lots of families with little kids, often playing on the sidewalk or in the street. The speed limit is 25 mph. Almost every intersection is a 4-way stop, but people run them all the time. Because parking is legal all the way to the intersection, if you stop at the technically correct spot, you won't see an thing. When I ride my bike, I get almost each time nailed by a car. You have to move into the intersection to see. Parking within a car lenght of an intersection should be illegal (it is, in some other countries).

Over the past three years, I've seen three or four nasty crashes just at my corner (no stop sign). I'll post a picture of a crash that happened just two weeks ago later tonight. The neighbors plan on petitioning for another stop sign.

At night, kids drive 50, even 60 mph in this neighborhood. They also make donuts in the intersections. Sometimes they don't quite make it and slam into parked cars. With punks with cell phones on constant lookout, the cops have no chance of being where they need to be.
 
quote:
Originally posted by moribundman:
Parking within a car lenght of an intersection should be illegal (it is, in some other countries).
Click to expand...
Always thought Virginia might be it's own country
smile.gif



§ 46.2-1239. Parking in certain locations; penalty.

No person shall park a vehicle or permit it to stand, whether attended or unattended, on a highway in front of a private driveway, within fifteen feet of a fire hydrant or the entrance to a fire station, within fifteen feet of the entrance to a plainly designated building housing rescue squad equipment or ambulances, or within twenty feet from the intersection of curb lines or, if none, then within fifteen feet of the intersection of property lines at any highway intersection.
 
Maine has a "school zone" program where you have to go the lower speed limit when children are present. It's great because it encourages drivers to actually watch for children.

It is perhaps overboard, but a municipality could declare all non-aterterial streets to have a speed limit of ~30 when children were present... call it a "dense residential zone". The flipside would be a "normal" speed limit you could use at midnight when there's no traffic and no real good reason to be crawling that slow.

This isn't directed at anyone here, but it frosts my cookies when some new couple in town buys a great cheap "starter" house on a major highway then tries to lower the speed limits or put that "traffic calming" junk in. This adjuncts my issue with peaceful cul-de-sac dead-end developments that dump traffic onto one arterial... that goes in front of someone else's yard.

If I were on a planning board a development would have to connect two decently travelled roads, no dead ends, and the traffic lights they put in would have to prioritize traffic flowing on the previously existing highways... to make the new guys wait.
 
Where I live the only real speed problems are on the interstates in my area.

It is posted 45 mph (construction area) for about 7 miles in the city limits of Knoxville on I-40/75 and if you drive the speed limit (in the far right lane) 85 yr old blue hairs will give you the finger. If traffic is moving (most of the time it doesn't) the average speed in the 45 zone is around 67 mph. I have not seen a car pulled over in about 2 months. Seems odd when 99% of the cars are exceeding the speed limit by 20mph. I think the police are scared to stop cars on that stretch of road in fear of getting hit.

Some ideas for slowing down traffic:

stage a small fender bender in view of traffic but not in the roadway-this should back traffic up for miles

institute "lane shifts" into the road-while a simple bump on the steering wheel will allow one to navigate the shift the vast majority will slow 25mph to do so-see papermill area of I40 in Knoxville

install rf jammers so people slow down to "fix" their radio

Those suggestions are in jest but I think the only way to really control speeding is heavy enforcement with heavier penalties assuming a REALISTIC speed limit exist. Not some ** like a 4 lane divided road with a 35 mph limit.

Example:
first speeding offence-$500 ticket
second-$1500 ticket and 30 day susp. of lic and 30 day vehicle impoudment
third offense-vehicle siezure and lic suspension for three years

These may be severe according to what we do currently but it would stop speeding and the morons that refuse to learn would be off the road and in the end getting some idiots off the road is a good thing.
 
Cameras...that is what they use in Europe, but if you install them, you have to be relentless in watching your speed because they don't sleep or aren't away in another part of town while you are speeding in yours. You know, it is really interesting. When we were in Germany, Switzerland, France, Austria and the Netherlands in June, people drive fast (some, REALLY fast) when the law allows but are remarkably willing to slow down when the speed limit signs say to. Could it be, in part, a cultural thing?

PS Going through a little down in Bavaria I didn't see the speed reduction and I had an epiphany...or maybe it was the flash from the camera...
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quote:
Originally posted by brianl703:

quote:
Originally posted by moribundman:
Parking within a car lenght of an intersection should be illegal (it is, in some other countries).
Click to expand...
Always thought Virginia might be it's own country
smile.gif



§ 46.2-1239. Parking in certain locations; penalty.

No person shall park a vehicle or permit it to stand, whether attended or unattended, on a highway in front of a private driveway, within fifteen feet of a fire hydrant or the entrance to a fire station, within fifteen feet of the entrance to a plainly designated building housing rescue squad equipment or ambulances, or within twenty feet from the intersection of curb lines or, if none, then within fifteen feet of the intersection of property lines at any highway intersection.
Click to expand...
It was 30 feet in PA when I had to go back and get retested ....for speeding
grin.gif
..that was back in 1978.
 
I live at an intersection in a residential area with a 25 mph speed limit. This is what happened two weeks ago. Click for larger pictures:


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-
That jerk bent our mailbox, and he pushed the red Civic into parked cars. That's the fourth accident of this type in the past three years.

PS: The fog sneaks up on you within minutes in SF!
wink.gif
 
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