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llion Dollar Industry“For every businessman r who tells us we re doing an good job, there’s three peoplee who have gotten speedinge citations who say we r ■s bummers and racketeers,”b he said. ^e “We’re just doing what aa police department is supposed to do, enforce the law.” 0 State police, who alone areh authorized to use radar, don'tn see themselves as revenuee producers either.d “That perverts the entiren purpose of law enforcement,”y said Cox. £ $In addition to being the? law, “ traveling at the slower postede rate of speed has resulted ingreater safety, Cox said In c 1976, state police investigatede 1,013 road deaths, 30 fewern than the preceding yeara “We’re not saying the num-ber of accidents has e- decreased, but the severityit has,” Cox said. We alsod can’t take all the credit for;s that, but wed like to takee some,”p To enforce the speed limit,state police admit they arepulling all stops. j“We have speed trapseverywhere,” said Cox. “It sdone on a very random basis and it’s a psychological type thing. No one knows where we ll be next.*1 ;At one time, state police were only permitted to use radar during the daylight hours and only in marked police cars. But that made it easy for the alert drivers to know when they could speed up and not get caught.“We found when we werehighly visible, it just did notwork.” said Cox. “So we became a Sneaky Fete.' We useunconventional vehicles in unconventional locations.” Police have also adopted a tactic that Cox calls “selective enforcement.” “We don’t have the menand equipment to patrol constantly,” ('ox said “So we’ll borrow men and equipment from several traps and put them on one section of highway. Then we’ll pour it on.”Because state police keep no records on the number of tickets handed out at a particular location, it’s tough to pinpoint the most productive speed traps.But some areas provide good cover for traps because of curves or hills and motorists don’t know to slow down until it’s too late.Some of the more notorious areas include a spot nearBe lie font e along Interstate 80in Centre County; Washington in Washington County along interstate 70; McadVilie in CrawfordCounty on Interstate 79; andthe four tunnels along thePennsylvania Turnpike.Another favorite police location is at Mile Post 72 6along the turnpike’s Northeast Extension near Interstate 80.NORMAUCTIONWill be heldTuesday, January 18at 6:30
Newspaper Details
Hanover Evening Sun
Hanover, Pennsylvania, US
Mon, Jan 17, 1977
Page 2
Full Page
Clipped by
Altoona A.
PA, USA 20 Mar 2019
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