A bipartisan pursuit at the Pennsylvania statehouse would permit local police to use speed radar. The effort is touted to bring the state in line with the rest of the country.
Pennsylvania is the lone state to prohibit municipal police from enforcing speed limits with radar. Since 1961 in the Keystone State, only state troopers are allowed to use radar.
Currently, local police are limited to enforcement tools such as VASCAR, which determines a vehicle’s speed by measuring the time it takes to move between two points.
Expanded enforcement
Efforts to permit municipal police officers to use radar to ticket speeders is an annual pursuit at the statehouse.
Sen. Greg Rothman, R-Mechanicsburg, tried for years as a state representative to get legislation approved that would permit municipal police officers to use radar to ticket speeders.
The first-term state senator is again behind a bill to authorize local police to issue tickets for speeding violations.
The Senate Transportation Committee voted unanimously in the spring to advance the latest effort. The bill, SB459, includes multiple conditions that must be met for the use of local radar.
First, no citation would be issued unless the offending driver is exceeding the posted speed by at least 10 mph. In active work zones, the speeding threshold would be at least 6 mph over the posted speed.
Rep. Kyle Donahue, D-Scranton, has introduced a nearly identical bill in the House. HB1368 includes certain reporting requirements for police officers in departments with at least 100 officers.
Moneymaker or safety enhancement?
One issue that has plagued the pursuit of local speed radar through the years is the concern about the technology being used as a revenue generator.
The bill sponsors attempt to address those concerns by including a provision to only issue written warnings for violations that occur for the first 90 days of enforcement.
Speed radar use would be permitted only when an officer is in or adjacent to a “clearly marked” law enforcement vehicle.
Additionally, revenue collected from speeding tickets could not exceed the previous year’s speed enforcement revenue by more than 1%. Any revenue raised exceeding the cap would go to the state’s motor license fund.
“Pennsylvania has one of the highest rates of speed-related traffic deaths in the country, and more than 85% of speed-related fatalities in our state occur on local roads,” Donahue wrote in a bill memo. “Despite this tragic reality, Pennsylvania is the only state where local police cannot use radar to enforce speed limits.”
This hamstrings our local police officers, making it challenging for them to keep roadways in our state safe.”
Rothman adds that “our police officers do everything possible to keep our communities safe, but they do not have all the tools they need to do the job effectively.”
The legislation includes a requirement for municipalities to first pass an ordinance allowing the use of radar.
Officials with the Pennsylvania State Police have said that radar is the most effective and accurate speed-control device available.
Critics say the state would be better served to follow the 85th percentile speed rule – the speed at or below which 85% of vehicles travel in free-flowing traffic. LL
More Land Line coverage of news from Pennsylvania.
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