Re: Speed trap

[steveb@falcon.kla.com (Steven Buchholz)]

> Lead foots,
> 
> For all you guys and gals who like to drive fast check out the internet
> site "speedtrap" on you webcrawler.  It list all the potential speed trap
> sites by state and city.
> 
... and feel free to contribute those that you are aware of!

No flame, but I did have a comment on the lead foot statement ... Although 
there are times where the REOs [Revenue Enhancement Officers] do use speed 
traps due to safety concerns, in many if not most cases speed traps are 
primarily intended to help bring in a little extra bonus for the local 
governments.  The thing that bugs the [crap] outta me is the assumption 
that speed limits are either divinely inspired or somehow tied to physical
laws.  I'd be happy if I knew that only the 85th percentile guideline was 
used.  There are so many situations where you wonder what the people who 
made the limits were thinking ... and I'm not saying that all limits are 
too low ... I can cite some situations where they are higher than they 
should be as well [IMO of course] ... 

The major downside to the speedtrap policy [here again IMO] is that I know
that to me it has caused me to lose most of the respect that I had for law
enforcement officers.  Being brought up in a military family I did have a
good deal of it to begin with ... and now I jokingly refer to the San Jose 
Police as [Mayor Susan] Hammer's Whores.  What else can they consider them-
selves when they sit out in the middle of nowhere, yet the speed limit is 
artificially low, on a street corner waiting to pick someone up ... and they
do have those red lights ... ;)

Steve Buchholz
s_buchho@kla.com
San Jose, CA (USA)