Speed Traps May Be Illegal, But You Can Still Get A Ticket From One!
September 2, 2010 by Barbara Guerrero
Filed under Car Insurance
One thing all of the 50 United States have in common is speed traps. These are places where law enforcement have made a reputation for handing out an unusually large number of traffic tickets.
There are common areas for speed traps. They can be in areas where there are bends in the road, stretches of road where the speed limit changes often, or where it might be difficult to see the posted speed limit.
Small municipalities like to set up speed traps near an interstate or major highway, where they know it is unlikely that a ticketed driver will return to fight it in court. Law enforcement realize that many drivers will use radar detectors in their attempt to evade a speeding ticket. They will render this method useless by setting up a speed trap where they will time you between two preset points with a stopwatch.
The way they do this is by knowing how long it takes to drive the distance between the two points they have chosen doing the posted speed limit. Once they have that information its a simple mathematical formula to gauge your speed. If you were speeding they will radio the speed, make, model and color of your car to an officer waiting down the road. That officer will pull you over and serve the citation.
The legality of the whole thing has been debated for years. Politicians and police officers alike have always supported controversial means to ticket drivers by preaching to us that it ’saves lives’. We all know the real reason is to greatly increase revenue.
The truth is, using deceptive means such as speed traps is unethical. Not to mention illegal. But law enforcement gets away with it all the time. Deceptive practices of writing traffic violations is quite literally worth billions of dollars yearly in America.
Next time your in your vehicle protect yourself from speed traps. And if you are planning on going on a road trip, do some research beforehand on the internet to determine where likely speed traps might be.
Learn more about speed traps. Stop by Steven Swihart’s site where you can find out a lot more information and advice on traffic violations of any kind, and how to beat them in traffic court.