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be careful traveling fayette county wv


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If you have time look at Gauley Bridge topix Whipkeys leaving Gauley Bridge police department, the Charleston Gazette has a couple of stories Gauley Bridge Speed trap, and Steve Korris-Statehouse Bureau Prosecutor feels like bull in bullfight before Justices. This town of 750 people issue more speeding tickets than any other city or town in WV. This might save a little money

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Funny thing about towns being called "speed traps". I used to live in one.

 

So what made it a speed trap? Probably the fact that it was a small town and the people who drove 60 mph in a 45mph zone figured that they were better than the police dept that gave trhem the ticket.

 

I mean, only 15 mph over the speed limit and I get a ticket?

 

In bigger cities, you stand a better chance of missing a cop. Smaller town such as mine where the whole town was only 1/2 mile long on a US hiway...well, chances are good that the police concentrate more patroling on the main place speeders are lickely to be at.

 

And I saw it through the eyes of Being Captain of the fire dept and rescue squad. Most wrecks and the ocasional fatalities in our town were the result of people who speed through the town and just knew they could beat the light.

 

 

Small town, so who cares about the rules? Well, the town and it's police do!

 

And Wah-Lah! You have a speed trap!

 

Or as I know it to be: A town that enforces the rules that the ticketed decided to ignore.

 

 

 

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A speed trap is a town that does certain things. One indicator of a speed trap town in Alabama is that the speed limit goes down by 5 mph each sign. That said, I have an easy solution to speed traps. When you drive through small towns, drive the speed limit (not 5, 10 or 15 mph over). That's what I do, and it works every time.

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perei said

 

A speed trap is a town that does certain things. One indicator of a speed trap town in Alabama is that the speed limit goes down by 5 mph each sign. That said, I have an easy solution to speed traps. When you drive through small towns, drive the speed limit (not 5, 10 or 15 mph over). That's what I do, and it works every time.

 

Are you talking about the town outside Dothan on a state highway that drops from 55 to 50 for one block, then down to 45 for a block, then 40 for a block, then 35 for a block, then reversing the process?

 

 

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In today's economy small, cash strapped communities are using their Police Departments as a key revenue source, targeting out of state drivers as they are less likely to show up in court to protest their citation. And, you don't have to be speeding. Failure to use a turn signal for a lane change could result in a reckless driving charge. Nearly all states now have move over laws for emergency vehicles, these fines are hefty. Additinally, LEO's have been known to scour their traffic codes looking for obscure laws that they can also use to cite. Driving the speed limit may help but don't count on it. For myself, I now drive with a radar detector that can't be picked up by any radar detector detector which gives on the low end a 3 mile warning, and on the high end up to 8 miles

 

here's a read...

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2009/02/08/slow_recession_ahead/

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Looks like your discovering the joys of speed traps, or not.

in the UK speed traps, and cameras are run by sinister sounding safety camera partnerships ( AKA revenue generators)

The only unsafe driving these safety cameras are good at catching are those driver who are over the speed limit, and by far the worst type of safety camera has to be the average speed check camera, which can be found on most major roads.

An average speed check camera electronically reads your number ( licence) plate and then another camera at a set distance reads it again. If your average speed is greater than the limit between each camera you receive a fine. So if you were travelling at 85MPH in a 70MPH limit, and you pass four cameras at this speed you can get fined four times.

 

On top of that some UK police forces use aerial speed enforcement methods, in other words a police helicopter equipped with a speed camera to get you from above.

You dont get stopped, no one visits your house, you just get a letter with a notice of intended prosecution in the post, traced back to the driver via the number ( licence) plate.

 

We also have 'community speed watch' schemes where members of the local community armed with radar guns and a clipboard record number(licence) plates of drivers going too fast, these drivers then receive a letter from the local police force.

the last time i saw one of these i drove past them at a leisurely 5MPH and gave them a wave.(This message has been edited by pint)

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Pint,

 

Ah yes UK and traffic cameras, I remember them well.

 

One interesting thing in the US is that some places use traffic cameras at red lights. I do not know if it is a state of North Carolina law, or a county ordinance, but several cities and towns were, stress WERE, using them. They stopped using them becasue the cameras actually cost more than they took in.

 

Whoever did the contract didn't take into account a law that stated X% of the tickets revenues from traffic cameras must go to the school system, with the rest going to the municipality. The contract with the company that did the cameras got a fixed rate per ticket, say Y.

 

So the school system percentage plus the camera company's fixed rate totaled more than the ticket. One city went to court over the matter of having to give the school system any money, lost the case, and had to pay the school system plus court costs.

 

EDITED, the company got a % of the ticket, not a fixed rate. So no matter how much the tickets would be, the cities had to pay.(This message has been edited by eagle92)

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My favorite speed trap is the Principality of Lichtenstein. One road in and out, basically a country on a cul-de-sac.

 

We were driving to Italy from Germany and going the same speed as everyone else exiting the Principality when we passed a lovely young woman holding the orange speed camera then got waved down by one of Lichtenstein's finest. He immediately fined us 200 CH. Well, we didn't have CH, having spent it all in the PoL and offered Italian Lire instead. Could have offered him poop on a stick and the response would have been better. Didn't we have CH or DM or US$$? No, my husband replied. We played with the cool Cambio machine that took any coin or bill from Western Europe and turned it into CH, which we then spent in your lovely principality. The fine collector settled for $60 and 20 DM, less than half the fine, gave us no receipt, and sent us on our way.

 

As we pulled out of the very busy fine-collection zone, I noticed 0 cars with Swiss or Lichtenstein plates. Just lots of Germans, Austrians, and French, and us with our weird looking US Army plates.

 

I half suspect we helped finance one hell of a party.

 

 

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le Voyageur wrote "Failure to use a turn signal for a lane change could result in a reckless driving charge." and "For myself, I now drive with a radar detector that can't be picked up by any radar detector detector which gives on the low end a 3 mile warning, and on the high end up to 8 miles "

 

Perhaps in Virginia doing the first would fit reckless driving but not in my state. We have a charge "negligent driving" that might be used as such but the burden is on the LEO to articulate how failing to signal becomes negligent rather than simply failing to signal. There must be extra circumstances making it so.

 

How do you reconcile the second quote with "A Scout is obedient?" A speed limit is just that a limit that under ideal road, weather and traffic conditions it is legal to reach and maintain. Anything other than ideal and the driver should drive under the posted limit. In my state there is only one single circumstance where it is legal to exceed the posted speed limit; two lane road where the vehicle you are following is not maintaining the speed limit then the driver may exceed the posted limit a reasonable amount in order to safely complete a pass. Follow the traffic laws, all of them and you should be ticket free.

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I've driven county and state highways all across the country and the difference I see between 'legitimate' laws and enforcement and 'speed traps' is exemplified by several close calls. I was driving north, away from Chattanooga on highway 2/US11. I was stuck behind a farm truck, doing about 20 mph in a 55 mph zone and I was frustrated because there just wasn't a safe place to pass. I was getting tempted to just pass anyway when just over a rise and in a place where there would have been NO WAY to slow down quickly enough from 55 mph, and still way out in the open road, was a 35 mph speed limit sign with a carefully placed police car. I owed that farmer a debt of gratitude because I would have been one of very many people who contribute to this tiny town's budget each year. Niota, TN has maybe 700 people in the town and yet they have several patrol cars and a full complement of officers. Google that town and the words 'speed trap' and see what you get.

 

The other example is one in South Carolina near the GA border on Hwy 72 between Greenwood, SC and Elberton, GA. The town of Calhoun Falls has a 55 mph speed limit coming into town but over the SAME stretch of highway, the speed limit is 35 mph as you leave town, way out into the open road. The local police have large turn-arounds where they can slowly drive back into town 'trolling' for 'outsiders' who think they've left the 35 mph speed zone because people coming INTO the town are going 55. These two examples are current examples of speed traps I've seen and thankfully avoided.

 

But the best example was the town of Ludowici, GA. I remember this one from my childhood. Everyone who drove to Florida on that stretch of highway would learn that this town was a place to crawl through. From wikipedia:

"The town gained notoriety during the 1950s and 1960s for its aggressive traffic enforcement policies. The American Automobile Association went so far as to specifically label Ludowici as a speed trap. Allegedly, members of the local police force were engaging in manipulation of the timing of the traffic signal downtown so as to catch unsuspecting out-of-area motorists 'running' a suddenly changed red light. The switch for the stop light was located in the barber shop. This activity subsequently came to an end when then-Governor Lester Maddox stated that the practices of the Ludowici police were giving the entire state a bad reputation."

 

The rumor was that they tended to collect most of their budget from yankees headed south, a source of local pride I suppose. But I could list dozens of examples like this. I avoid this kind of thing by going really, really slow through all of these wretched little towns.

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BrotherhoodWWW - Laws are supposed to keep us safe, and give everyone a reasonable chance at being treated fairly and equally. More and more traffic laws have nothing to do with any of this, and instead are blatantly being used as a source of revenue for local governments.

 

Consider traffic cameras setup at intersections to catch those who run red lights. Numerous studies have conclusively shown that the best way to reduce accidents as a result of running red lights is to lengthen the amount of time the light is yellow prior to turning red. Instead, cities put up a traffic camera at an intersection, and the SHORTEN the yellow light time, to increase the number of citations they can issue at that intersection. And, as a side effect, increase the number of accidents occurring at that intersection.

 

Or small town cops who specifically target out of state drivers, who will be less likely appear in court. Even appearing in court to plea "not guilty" costs more than just paying the ticket by mail. How is that fair, letting one car go, but pulling over another one travelling the same speed, based on the license plate?

 

Or deliberately setting speed limits well below a safe and reasonable speed for that road? A stretch of road in a small town near me that passed by a shopping mall and several shopping centers used to be 50mph. Well, the economy got bad, and the shopping mall and all but a few of the other stores have become abandoned, and there is MUCH less traffic on that road now. If anything, it would be safe to RAISE the speed limit a bit. But, instead, the town dropped it to 30mph, trying to recuperate the lost tax dollars from the closing of all the retail in the area. Meanwhile, theft, burglary and violent crime in this area is at an all time high, and continues to grow.

 

Or the people (like me) who can easily get out of a minor traffic stop by flashing an FOP card, or a police, fire or EMS badge? Is that fair?

 

What's an obedient Scout to do when certain laws are clearly setup with no other purpose than to extort money from citizens?

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