[Vwdiesel] OT uniformed tax collectors coming to a state near you

[Publius]

 FYI: ON INTERSTATE 5 in SnohomishCounty, Washington, Lance Ramsay
stands behind a surveyor's tripod.
He is wearing the typical jeans, hard
hat and reflective vest of a highway
worker. But all is not as it seems. The
device on the tripod is actually a laser
speed ranging gun, and Ramsay is a
Washington State Trooper, tracking cars
as they transit from the legal highway
speed limit to the "construction zone"
limit. A half-mile behind him, eight more
troopers wait. The construction zone is a
fake, which begs the question of whether
the speed limit is even valid. In just two
hours, Trooper Ramsay and his crew write
76 speeding tickets—or more than one
every two minutes—for an average take of
$210 per ticket. That's approximately
$8000 per hour collected from motorists
who actually didn't do anything wrong.
The Washington State Patrol got this
idea from Florida, where similar stings
have been used. The only difference
seems to be that Washington's was an
equal-opportunity sting, whereas several
reputable sources have reported that the
Florida version is heavily skewed toward
targeting out-of-state drivers.