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Posted on 06/22/2021 3:50:53 PM PDT by lightman
A bill allowing municipal police across Pennsylvania to use radar guns for speed enforcement details passed the state Senate Tuesday on a 49-1 vote.
Pennsylvania is currently the only state in the nation that limits the use of radar exclusively to its state police. That’s a sore spot for many municipal officials and police chiefs, who feel they are handicapped in monitoring speeding in residential zones and local roads where speeders can really raise the risk of an accident.
But it’s also been a treasured, 60-year-old safeguard for some motorists. Critics have worried that those same municipal officers would take advantage of the new tool to balance their budgets by issuing lots of tickets.
There are some careful conditions built into Sen. Mario Scavello’s bill, which now moves to the state House for further consideration.
First, in an attempt to defuse the longstanding concern about policing for profit, the bill says that no municipality could receive more than 10 percent of its annual municipal budget from the local share of speeding ticket fines. Any dollars received in excess of that cap would revert to the state Treasury, to help fund the recruitment and training of future Pennsylvania State Police cadet classes.
Scavello, R-Monroe County, would also require any municipality that wants to use radar to first adopt an ordinance authorizing its use in that community, and get officers certified in use of the equipment. It would then have to post warning signs on any “main arteries” entering into its jurisdiction that radar enforcement is used there, and for the first 90 days only warnings could be issued.
The devices could not be used within 500 feet of any sign that denotes a reduction in a speed limit.
And finally, the bill modifies existing wiggle room language by codifying that for any speeding citation to be issued based on radar readings, the violation as recorded must be at least 10 miles over the posted speed limit for the street or road in question, or, on interstate highways with a posted speed limit of 70 miles per hour, at least six miles over that limit.
That latitude goes away, however, in posted school or work zones.
Scavello said he thinks the measure strikes a fair balance between the desire of police chiefs and municipal officials to better enforce traffic safety in their cities and towns - which are much more likely to have pedestrian traffic than the highways that state police patrol - and worries about abuse of power.
The issue has been considered in numerous past legislative sessions, but never passed.
Earlier this year, however, the Pennsylvania State Troopers Association, the union representing members of the Pennsylvania State Police and typically a strong voice on public safety issues, lent its support to a similar bill sponsored by Rep. Greg Rothman, R-Camp Hill. Rothman’s bill passed the House Transportation Committee this spring, but has not moved any further.
It was not immediately clear if the House will take up Scavello’s bill before breaking for the summer later this month.
There is some continuing opposition to the bills from the National Motorists Association, a grassroots organization dedicated to the preservation of drivers’ rights.
In an alert posted to members of that organization about Rothman’s bill this spring, the NMA noted that by PennDOT’s own counts, traffic fatalities in Pennsylvania reached an all-time low in 2019, a development that occurred without “municipal police being able to use RADAR for predatory speed enforcement.”
NMA member Thomas McCarey wrote that means “arming municipal police with radar guns at this time... is evidence of an agenda to give financial aid to commercial radar interests; to give financial aid to municipal governments; and to give financial aid to the state.”
According to PennDOT’s 2020 “Crash Facts and Statistics” report, 269 of the state’s reported 1,129 total fatalities that year were listed as resulting from “speed-related” accidents, or crashes where speed was considered the prime contributing factor.
Quick on the trigger...click it and TICKET.
Pennsylvania Ping!
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Ugh...
Wonderful, just what we need to give local police. More weapons of war. Now meeting their monthly quotas can be done more efficiently. Hi-tech robbing of citizens. Just love it. (That’s called sarcasm folks)
“269 of the state’s reported 1,129 total fatalities that year were listed as resulting from “speed-related” accidents” -— So the majority of deaths were not speed-related...
Just got back from PA. And I was welcomed to an envelope. Inside, a beautiful picture of my license plate and a 75.00 dollar ‘civil violation’ for 11 miles an hour over the speed limit. I can guarantee, if I was speeding, it was with the flow of traffic or lower. The state just sits back and counts the income with a smile...utter BS.
My sis told me not to pay; they get them all the time. Paid anyway.
Better to pay, altho is does suck.
Tax Collectors pretending to be law enforcement.
I’m sure eventually when all cars are on the grid this will no longer be a problem as it simply won’t let you go over the speed limit.
Revenue Enhancement.
That was from a work zone speed camera.
No license points.
The fine is a civil fine.
Nevertheless, good that you paid it because the total cost will never be lower. Fines have a way of growing exponentially through “interest and penalties”.
No kidding. The government entities need $$$$ more than ever.
Simple solution: Don’t speed.
Welcome to the party, Pal.
If they let us have cars.8
I drive with the traffic and I am a very safe driver. I have seen state police, who have radar guns, single out individual drivers for a ticket when they were driving along with the traffic. They certainly do not pull over everyone. That is unequal justice, and it just isn't safe to not drive at the same speed as the rest of traffic.
Speed traps can be used as a form of revenue generation. Local cops are well known for camping out to meet their quotas to raise revenue. I'll have no part of that. Quite honestly where I live there is very little need for local police, crime is that low. It has nothing to do with having township police. Everyone around here is heavily arms and generally just decent folk that don't break the law. Local police show up after there are problems, which is rare. They are never there when you need them. So people take things in their own hands. The rest of the time they just spend eating donuts and wasting gas driving around.
I am dead set against more government at every level, that includes township police when they are not needed. Now they have another method of extracting money from citizens. That's a lot easier to do than raise taxes.
Where I lived in pa they had lines painted in the road and used a stop watch. Someone got a ticket and went and measured the lines. Turns out they were too close together (Or too far apart) thus the time/distance ratio was off. Ticket voided as were lots of other tickets.
Bullsh*t.
Just one more way to harass the working man.
Something tells me police department revenue problems are about to be over, and theres going to be whole lot of angry people around pretty soon. I think this is going to be ugly, but it should end the autobahn behavior (which you wouldn’t expect, as bad as the roads are!)
I have received my first and second notice of a ticket from a speed camera in Medina, TN. I have not and will not pay. My cousin has received a ticket from the same camera as she lives in the area. She said (and other people) that it is not enforceable. Apparently after the second notice is mailed out, that is the end of it.
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