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The term speed trap refers to a point where speed limits are strictly enforced by police. It is generally understood as meaning a specific location in which police wait in concealment. For example, a police car might wait behind a bridge or overpass, out of sight of approaching motorists, but has also been applied to locations where a speed camera is posted. In California traffic law, the use of speed traps (as specifically defined, see "Speed trap" in California traffic law) is prohibited.
The term speed trap is usually used by motorists, not by enforcement officers. It may be considered pejorative, and use of the term may suggest the appearance of speed enforcement by concealed means or excessively strict speed enforcement.
Speed traps have been used since the beginning of the 20th Century as a means to enforce speed limits, and Britain's Automobile Association was set up specifically to notify members of speed traps.
Cities or road sections become known as speed traps where police have a reputation for writing an unusually high number of traffic tickets, especially speeding tickets. Sometimes the posted speed limits are not easily seen; in other places, the limits might be set excessively low.
Speed traps often are found in small towns, often near major highways, in which travelers are less likely to return and challenge a ticket. Speed trap towns typically have an unusually large percentage of their local workforce dedicated to traffic law enforcement or judiciary occupations. Furthermore, traffic fines make up an unusually large percentage of income for speed trap towns.
France
Speed limit enforcement in France is widespread by the use of static manned police speed traps. This has resulted in a drop of around 20% in the French road fatality rate since 2002. In the case of offenders who do not have an address in France, French police and Gendarmes have the power to demand a deposit from the driver against the payment of the fine, which in practice is 100% of the amount of the fine for the offence. French police and Gendarmes target static locations where it is easy for them to trap large numbers of drivers exceeding the speed limit. These locations often include motorway sliproads, where speed limits that descend every 100 metres are common. Although accident rates are high in France, the French police and Gendarmes concentrate their resources mostly on speed. In some cases, the gendarmes locate themselves at toll booths on motorways, and fine drivers who have arrived at the exit toll booth too soon since taking a ticket at the entry toll booth. A common tactic by long-distance drivers is therefore to take any breaks (for meals etc) on tolled sections of road rather than untolled sections, thereby reducing their average speed between the toll booths.
Speed trap detectors are illegal in France. The mere existence of a speed trap detector in a vehicle, even if switched off or packed in luggage, attracts a fine of up to €3000, confiscation of the device, potentially also of the vehicle, and in some cases a prison sentence *.
Automatic speed cameras exist in France, but are rare compared to other European countries, and usually face the front of oncoming vehicles, thereby capturing a photo of the driver.
United Kingdom
Most speed limit enforcement in the United Kingdom is carried out by a large network of automatic cameras (mostly Gatso, but some Truvelo- see Category:Speed camera types used in the United Kingdom). The cameras are painted bright yellow in order to act as more as a deterrent than as a revenue-generating device, and new installations are mainly at defined accident black spots. Gatso cameras face the rear of vehicles, meaning that no photo of the driver is captured. Cameras are not allowed to be hidden, for example behind road signs, trees or bushes.
Manned static speed traps are less common in the United Kingdom compared to other European countries. Most manned speed limit enforcement is carried out by police officers in cars (both marked and unmarked) who follow offenders (often filming them) for some distance before pulling them over. This allows officers to gather evidence of other traffic offences and to gauge the overall standard of the offender's driving. Drivers of vehicles with no address in the UK currently evade paying British speeding fines very easily, given that the British police do not have the power to enforce payment on the spot, but plans have been announced to change enforcement procedures [http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-2076680,00.html.
Camera and radar detectors are currently legal in the UK, although there are plans to ban them. Such a ban would not affect GPS-based devices that merely warn drivers of fixed camera sites.
United States
In the recently incorporated town of Coopertown, Tennessee, the mayor decided to lower the speed limit significantly in order to fill the town's coffers*. The city limits include a small stretch of Interstate I-24 on both the eastbound and westbound lanes of Exit 24, just north of Nashville, Tennessee. City police currently sit in speed traps near the overpass of the exit and also in the bottom area near the Cheatham County line. Fines are unusually high but are fulfilling the mayor's purpose, which he claims is to make his town safer. However, no one travelling on I-24 passes close to the two schools and one church that makes up the town, and so this claim is disputed. Local residents avoid the traps but those who are just passing through have no warning. The city's police budget has nearly tripled, from $155,880 during the last fiscal year to $451,550 this year. Coopertown's budget calls for $400,000 in traffic court revenue, 29% of the city's budget and a monetary amount higher than in many U.S. Midstate cities with more people.
In the former village of New Rome, Ohio, a speed trap that had received national media attention, a police force of 14 presided over a community of only 60 and collected around $400,000 in tickets annually. This comprised nearly all of the village's budget, and nearly all went back into funding the police.
In the capital city of Saint Paul, Minnesota, a stretch of Interstate 35E slows abruptly from 60 to 45 miles per hour due to the freeway passing through a residential zone; a disproportionate number of tickets are given to less-than-aware drivers passing through this area.
A force of less than a dozen full-time and reserve officers in Coburg, Oregon, a city of fewer than 1,000 people, raised over $750,000 in traffic fines in a year on a section of Interstate 5 outside the city limits. When the Oregon Legislative Assembly closed a legal loophole the city had been exploiting, Coburg's police force spent the last six months before the law took effect writing an average of 22 tickets/day. This resulted in bail amounts totalling more than $1 million.
Numerous small town speed traps on the northern fringes (including Humble, Shenandoah, Tomball & others) have helped propel Houston, Texas to number 5 on the National Motorists Association (www.speedtrapexchange.org) speed trap 2006 list. Shenandoah (1.7 sq mi, pop. 1503) actually has a higher ratio of police cars to citizens than the notorious Kendleton Texas speed trap which was closed down by the government. The judge is also a bondsman. Residents of Shenandoah were threatened with contempt of court for missing jury duty. It was slowing down the system following the purchase of the Auto Cite High Speed Ticketing Device.
Waldo, Florida, and Lawtey, Florida, are the only known towns (as of 2005) to be designated by AAA Auto Club as "traffic traps" (speed traps) *, with AAA going so far as to post billboards along U.S. Route 301 warning drivers to watch their speed limits. Both traps feature multiple variations in speed limit. AAA has also designated seven cities and towns, including Washington, D.C.; Gulf Breeze, Florida; Summersville, West Virginia; and Chiefland, Florida, as "strict enforcement areas," which is defined as featuring justified, aggressive enforcement.
Anecdotal evidence produced from analyzing some large Texas police departments and the Texas DPS suggests that at least half of all moving violation tickets written by any traffic enforcement agency are for speeding violations.
Limiting speed traps
In response to speed trap towns such as Iowa Colony, Texas, the Texas Legislature limited the revenue that smaller cities may collect from traffic tickets. All funds in excess of this amount are remitted to the state. Oregon and other states have similar laws.Another tactic to limit speed traps is to reserve traffic law enforcement on numbered highways to state police or a similar entity.
"Speed trap" in California traffic law
Before the advent of radars, lasers and other hi-tech speed detectors, the speed of a vehicle was often determined with the help of aircraft observations by timing the moments when the vehicle passes two specific marks on a highway with known distance between them. This way was declared illegal, and for the purposes of the law the following definition was given in the California Vehicle Code:
- A "speed trap" is ... A particular section of a highway measured as to distance and with boundaries marked, designated, or otherwise determined in order that the speed of a vehicle may be calculated by securing the time it takes the vehicle to travel the known distance.
The prohibition of this kind of "speed traps" followed after a series of successful defences that argued inadmissible error margin in human timing.
Subsequently, the second clause was added to the "speed trap" definition to cover inadmissible usage of "radar or other electronic devices". It considers multiple factors, such as the operation standards of devices, training of police officers, and whether the enforced speed limits were properly justified.
Since the introduction of this California law, some came to an erroneous conclusion that it forbids the "cop in the bush"-type speed traps.
See also
External Links
- Speed Traps In Your Area Updated Daily. The Largest Speed Trap Database in the world].
- Speedtrap Registry Sponsored by the National Motorists Association.
"Speed trap"