Peters Township Lobbying for Radar Speed Enforcement
Peters Township Council wants its police officers to be able to use radar to catch speeders.
Peters Township Council voted Monday night to ask state lawmakers to allow municipal police departments to use radar to catch speeders.
Pennsylvania is one of the only states in the country that does not let local police to use radar while on patrols. Instead, police officers are required to track cars using stopwatches as they travel through white timing lines.
Peters Township Manager Mike Silvestri said that makes it tougher for police departments in this area with winding and shorter roads.
“We’ve done the resolution in the past and always been supportive of police being able to do radar,” Silvestri said. “Especially in communities like Peters where you have short roads and curves. It would be a lot easier than using the timing devices.”
The council voted to send a letter to state Rep. John Maher, R-Upper St. Clair, and state Sen. Matt Smith, D-Mt. Lebanon, asking the state to change the law. Pennsylvania State Police are the only ones permitted to use radar while enforcing the speed limit.
Silvestri said this isn’t a ploy to garner more fine money because the majority money generated from speeding tickets is used to pay officers going to court.
“We would not be doing it as a money raiser,” Silvestri said. “The way it works in Peters, if someone appeals (the ticket), we have to pay overtime, so we don’t really make a lot of money on fines. Our main goal is to keep the streets safe. We would use it responsibly.”
As of now, there doesn’t appear to be much interest in the state legislature to allowing local police departments to use radar.
Roger
7:19 am on Wednesday, March 13, 2013
Good move!
Bob
10:00 am on Wednesday, March 13, 2013
I agree, it's a great move. Why the lack of interest in the legislature?
Lucy
11:16 am on Wednesday, March 13, 2013
Leave it as it is. They have the white lines on busy streets and on back roads, and can catch plenty of the speeding drivers.
Roger
1:04 pm on Wednesday, March 13, 2013
If the present scheme of white lines and stopwatches is working well enough to "catch plenty ...," then why have so many traffic calming devices been installed in recent years? And, why are residents going to Council to ask for traffic calming devices in their neighborhoods too?
I don't know your definition of "plenty." For those places where calming devices have been installed, or are being requested, the "plenty" isn't enough. Apparently, left to their own devices, many drivers choose to drive irresponsibly.
As somebody who works in neighborhoods, parks on the streets, works along side the streets, I know there are many drivers who fail to understand the danger they pose. And, no, it is not only teens, although some of the drivers are teens. Young mothers often have a very heavy foot getting their children to and from the bus stop.
Let's give the police department the tools they need to better enforce reasonable speeds.
Aloofnd
2:13 pm on Wednesday, March 13, 2013
And the white lines themselves are deterrents. Not a big fan of seeing PT in the headlines lobbying for more enforcement powers and tools. I'd be much more impressed to see a headline about PennDot being lobbied to proactively project future traffic flows and build to meet future demand rather than build projects in 5 years that just barely meet demands from 5 years ago. Where is that southern beltway?
Ricky W Kracker a.k.a. Diggy Swagga
11:47 am on Wednesday, March 13, 2013
Pa. is not "one of the only", but THE ONLY state which prohibits local police officers from timing vehicles with radar/lidar. Must be some rather healthy campaign contributions from the manufacturers of the stopwatch based devices. So tired of this backwards thinking foolish legislature.
Aloofnd
1:36 pm on Wednesday, March 13, 2013
Backwards? Or ahead? A bunch of states installed traffic-cams - it was free money for greedy government. Then came the voter backlash resulting from the bad tickets written from those devices. Now the traffic-cams are getting pulled. Let's save ourselves the exercise in frustration and harassment and not go there. If you want progressive, please go to California. Rather than bringing California here.
Aloofnd
6:26 pm on Tuesday, March 19, 2013
Is there really a lot of money in Vascar sales? Enough to effectively lobby and manipulate the state legislature? Do you have any links to back up your accusation? Are specific state senators or assemblymen part of this grand conspiracy?
Aloofnd
1:26 pm on Wednesday, March 13, 2013
In my opinion, disallowing local podunk police departments from having the ability to mickey-mouse a lot of drivers out of hard earned money is a good thing. It's one of the things the state of PA does right. I remember PT police having 5 cars collecting road tax right in front of Donaldson's Crossroads - they effectively made it a turnpike. It reeked of a department out of control. Currently Cecil seems to be the worst local offender for over-aggressively harassing drivers. "No local radar/lidar" is a good thing; this is not broke, don't "fix" it. Write your councilmen and your state reps. This would be removing a welcome check on local government powers and opening all of our checkbooks to nuisance policing. This is a grab for power and dollars, just say no.
Roger
1:31 pm on Wednesday, March 13, 2013
Quoting: "... this is not broke, don't "fix" it."
Why have the traffic calming devices been installed? Why are residents asking for more of them?
What defines "not broke" for you?
Aloofnd
2:07 pm on Wednesday, March 13, 2013
Repeating the mistake of turning local LEO's loose with technology they have abused before adds costs to every driver in the state. A few speed bumps seems a better solution than turning officers into a revenue-hunting snipers. And then we'd need to add officers to replace the ones busy harassing our drivers - and then we'd write more tickets to try to catch up. Perhaps a road or two is having issues. Failure to plan for traffic flow comes to mind. Messing up the entire state on another issue and making the relationship we have with our police far more adversarial than it needs to be seems like a classic big-government way to make the situation worse.
Roger
11:42 am on Thursday, March 14, 2013
Aloofnd, you clearly have an issue with local law enforcement. Your issue is not about the radar. You have just used this piece about radar to vent about local law enforcement, and have said nothing about the safety concern.
Perhaps you would like to write about your real matter, and not disguise your rants through the veil of the radar guns.
Aloofnd
6:18 pm on Tuesday, March 19, 2013
Roger, aren't personal attacks a violation of the terms of use? They are usually called "ad hominem" attacks and are a logical fallacy usually employed when discussion of the issue is not turning out so well for the person resorting to the dubious attack. I don't know you well enough to presume to diagnose your issues in return, but you do seem intent on subjecting not only all of Peters to doing things your way, but the entire state of Pennsylvania as well. Seems like fertile ground were one prone to flinging about psychological terminology. As a township resident, taxpayer and voter, I am not in favor of requesting radar authority for this or any other township. Last time I checked, my opinion had the same value as any other township voter, regardless of whether they thought they had all the answers or not. Or whether they felt a need to micro-manage traffic passing their property.
Roger
7:14 am on Wednesday, March 20, 2013
Quoting:
Aloofnd, you clearly have an issue with local law enforcement. Your issue is not about the radar. You have just used this piece about radar to vent about local law enforcement, and have said nothing about the safety concern.
Perhaps you would like to write about your real matter, and not disguise your rants through the veil of the radar guns.
==================
You have lots of words in your post, but did not answer the simple question.
Aloofnd
4:46 pm on Wednesday, March 20, 2013
Too many words for you Roger? OK, I'll try fewer. Shorter sentences, too. Try to keep up.
Debating the topic is good.
Attacking those who disagree with you is bad.
I'll risk a more complex concept here Roger. Perhaps you should ask someone to explain it to you. Once you stop debating the topic on it's merits and try to bully someone by attacking them, you have conceded defeat and have resorted to disgraceful tactics which cheapen yourself and your cause. But, by all means, go ahead and repeat the same attack again. Maybe you will get it the third time.
There is a simple term for repeating the same inputs and expecting different outputs, Roger. But it is more than one syllable so I won't waste it on you.
Roger
7:00 am on Saturday, March 23, 2013
No, Aloofnd, not too many words, or length of sentences. It is the content of the sentences I keep asking about.
The simple question goes unanswered: What is your real issue with local law enforcement officials? We know it is not the radar guns.
If we know your answer, perhaps others can help you with your concern. Talking about words and sentence structures does not give us any information about your concerns.
Thank you.
Aloofnd
3:50 pm on Tuesday, March 26, 2013
Actually Roger, you did complain about how many words. Check your posts. While you are at it, check my posts. I did lay out my reservations with giving local law enforcement more technical tools. You are making an inaccurate jump from me not supporting radar at the local level - and the abuses that accompany local radar - with to a general dislike for local law enforcement. You leap of illogic is not valid.
Your technique of misrepresenting my position is called a straw-man argument. I do not support local radar. You misrepresent my position as disliking local law enforcement and then patronizingly offer to help me with my problem. It adds up to manipulative nonsense.
So not only do I not have a "problem" with local law enforcement; I neither need nor am interested in the "help" of someone who wants to smother all of Pennsylvania under a blanket of radar. Perhaps you should seek help, Roger. Why is it you think micromanaging everyone's driving is a good thing? Why is it that you think people owning property on a road that has evolved into a traffic artery should be able to turn the clock back and reduce traffic even at the cost of subjecting an entire state to local traffic fine abuse? Shouldn't we address the root problem: residential growth disconnected from traffic infrastructure planning/management/growth? Shouldn't we be looking into when the southern beltway might give some of these drivers a more suitable route?
Joseph
6:06 pm on Tuesday, March 26, 2013
Aloofnd and Roger need to have a beer summit.
joe
10:11 am on Wednesday, April 24, 2013
I wonder if our police department would have a policy in place to handle this ?
It has a history of lack of policy and or plans ? The example would be the situation when we had a bomb threat to the middle school, no policy or plan in place for that.why would we give them this tool or power with no oversite ?