You guys will love this one:

[Rick Lee]

Say it ain't so...

http://www.miami.com/mld/miami/3845127.htm

[Targa Dude]

Hmmmmmmm.. I think their is a term for this form of policing Tatic.

"ENTRAPMENT" comes to mind.. it don't surprize me a bit though.



Jorge (Targa Dude)

[DavidPorter]

Unfortunately, for the police to entrap you they need to entice you to do something you wouldn't have done otherwise, and we know what 911 drivers are like.

[billwagnon]

Geez they post all over - "construction zone slow your butt down"

and people complain if they get a ticket?

Wipe out enough construction workers and they'll just close the interstate completely when they need to work on it.

[pbs911]

All they need now is an Indian, biker, sailor, and cowboy.

All together now in Florida - IT's fun to live at the YMCA . . .

[surflvr911sc]

LOL Paul!
It kind of scares me that you have that picture though.

[speeder]

Uh, Jorge, is it "entrapment" when a motorcycle cop hides behind a tree or bush to catch speeders whizzing by? What do you expect them to do for you, put up a warning sign a mile before the speed trap?

[pwd72s]

A friend of mine, living in Florida, just bought a '98 C2S...upon my strong suggestion, he recently ordered a V-1...I just sent him the article...Wow! What ticks me off about the "fines double in construction zones" thing they do in Oregon? The fines remain the same whether there is actually any work being done or not...just as long as it's the "zone"...I can understand slowing when workers are present. But when they aren't????

[Jamie79SC]

Billwagnon,

You mean you don't enjoy using those big orange cones for high speed slalom practice? Like Richard, I like to see how fast I can tear through a construction site.

Tongue now removed from cheek. Anyone who speeds through an active construction site deserves whatever they throw at them, regardless of how they’re caught.

[Jack Olsen]

I think their rationalization is reasonable. Speeding through a construction zone -- especially when workers are present -- is dangerous and stupid.

I don't care for the tactics, though. Why not just set up a trooper at the entrance point to the construction zone and leave the cloak and dagger stuff to the CIA?

[TimT]

Thank goodness!!!

as a person who works on and runs some major highway projects in the NYC area Im glad to see that Fla is doing what they are doing!!!! I wish we could get the troopers in NY to take the same action.

We post huge orange signs, place rumble strips, and warn about speeding through work zones via radio ads etc. and yet the traveling public ignores the signs and more often than not exceeds the speed limit posted by a large margin.

Think about physics for a sec. 3000 lb car at 65mph vs. 200 lb construction worker. Or better yet 70000 lbs semi at 75 mph vs. a group of construction workers. Who do you think fares better?

Do you really save that much time by speeding through a work zone, and endangering me, my fellow workers and friends?

I have seen first hand the result of a speeding car lose control and enter a work zone. It was not a pretty sight at all.

ENTRAPMENT? hardly.......

Additionally a work zone is not only a work zone when workers are present!!!!!!! The conditions of the road have been changed as a result of the work, perhaps aligment changes, rough pavement, etc.

[pwd72s]

Jack, I'm sure you know the answer to that one. A marked car would slow traffic down, thus producing more worker safety. Ahhh, but sneaky tactics like these, though they may not protect the workers, sure as hell enhance government revenue!

[Targa Dude]

Speeder, Jack has taken the words right out of my mouth..
I have a buddy who is in fact a hiway worker.. and I hear a lot of stories about what happens out there..here in the Bay Area we have had more than our share of these guys being ran over by careless drivers that have no regard for human safety or life
and in fact they do have a Hiway patrol officers parked at these locations at times and if not they install miles of temporary
K- Barrier walls and I mean Miles of it. and to date since they started using these K-walls there has not been a Hiway worker killed or mamed here in the bay area.


Jorge (Targa Dude)

[Moses]

Unfortunately, pwd72S has hit the nail squarely on the head.

[PORSHIN]

I think what happens in a lot of these cases is similar to what happened in the old tale of "the boy who cried wolf" which most of us heard as children.
You are driving down the Interstate at 65 or 70 when you see the "work zone 45 mph" signs. You see the orange cones. The concrete barriers. You begin 45 mph. 45 miles and an hour later, you still haven't seen any sign of construction or life for that matter. So knowing you are going to be late, you just figure they are not working on it yet. You speed up little by little and pretty soon you are into the 400 dollar ticket zone! about that time, you come to a 20 foot bridge that is being rebuilt. There's the construction! now you only have 45 more miles to go before you can resume your speed! Why do they close down a hundred miles of road to rebuild one little bridge?

Anyone who doesn't know the story about the boy and the wolf, just reply and I'll give you the readers digest condensed version! LOL
Rob

[Overpaid Slacker]

Revenue is the thing, no doubt.
Slightly off the original topic, but in the revenue vein, did anyone else here see the 5-part series on weeklystandard.com a few weeks ago about the outright gov't fraud in the intersection speedtraps/stoplight cams? The first of the 5-part series is located here . The other parts can be linked to therein.

Rant coming, all but TimT feel free to skip...

Commence Rant
TimT -- Sorry to make you regret posting, and I completely agree with what you've said about construction zones, but given your occupation, I've got to know a few things -- Why is so much of the metro NYC area road infrastructure in a condition that would embarrass a third-world country? Don't take this as an accusation at all, but if you've got experience with this stuff, I'd be interested to know a few things:

(1) why "we" as a city can't seem to string together 2 consecutive miles of road w/o dangerous potholes/tanktraps/mysterious humps/general disrepair --motorcyclists in this area take their lives in their hands, even w/o considering other vehicular traffic;

(2) who is the freaking genius that decided that the storm drains on the LIE (and elsewhere around here) ought to be INside the left edge of the "fast"lane (as opposed to being on the inner shoulder and outside the actual traffic lane), so you cannot help but hammer your suspension every 100 yards on drainage grates that are either 2" above the pavement surface, or 4" below; and

(3) is there a centralized road work planning "organization" that (i) ensures that every single major highway in Brooklyn and Queens is under construction at the same time, so escape is impossible and/or (ii) deliberately waits until 6-12 weeks*after* an entire street has been torn up and repaved
to rip 3' wide trenches along/across the new, smooth road surface to lay conduit/fiberoptics/sewer/etc. -- with the result that once the trench(es) are spackled closed (by what I have to assume are blind, drunken stucco school dropouts) the road is as bad as it was before the 6-month repaving?

Damn, I've lived in Brooklyn too long. Again, sorry -- I assume "population density" and "incompetence" (maybe the same thing, hehe) will feature prominently in your responses, if you're patient enough to reply, but I've been dying to find out the answers to these questions. Thanks in advance.

/Rant

- jPp

[dtfastbear]

For all of you Bay Area residents, they announced on the news this morning that they are doing this exact thing on roads around San Francisco and the East Bay.

Slow down in the construction zones, boys, for a lot of good reasons, all detailed above.

Dean

[Mike Feinstein]

I remember when I lived in Oklahoma seeing a large sign on the side of the expressway which read:

"DEA Checkpoint - 1 mile"

About 1/2 mile up was a rural exit ramp.


There were about 9 cops waiting just out of view at the top of the ramp.

[Eric Coffey]

On the city streets here in Redmond, WA (a.k.a. Microsoftville) the cop's latest revenue-generating trick is to stake out multiple crosswalks, and send plain-clothes officers across them all day. If anyone fails to yield to the "pedestrian", they get the big ticket. The problem is that the officers will stand and the crosswalk, looking the other way, and then dart out into the intersection. Total BS. Yes, I fell victim to this exact scenario (cop darted out on the other side of the street), but beat the ticket in court. I am all for road safety, but come on!

[Rick Lee]

I really have no problem taking it easy in construction or work zones. The problem is that I very rarely drive through one where there is ANY work being done at all. Sure, there are lots of orange signs, but rarely any workers there. Of course, the low speed limit applies at all times in a work zone, even if there's no work being done. I laugh when I drive through one on the Frdiay evening before a holiday weekend. Like there's any work zone in the country that's gonna have workers there on that night. My dad and I call them Union Zones. In VA the State Police get paid plenty of overtime to sit there with their blue flashing lights and a/c on, just to alert motorists. I guess it would make too much sense to have flashing lights on batteries there, when we could be wasting tax dollars on overtime for cops. I would never want to endanger any person, but it's a little ridiculous when they say "double fines" on a stretch of highway that is perfectly straight, level, smooth and has no workers or even equipment present.