Oppose Pennsylvania Speed Trap Bill SB 607

Speed Trap Bill SB 607: is it for safety or money?

For safer streets speed limits must be posted at the safest speeds. Those are the 85th Percentile Speeds, the speeds most people drive, determined by a highway safety engineer’s speed study.

But the public does not know this. They are harangued
by “safety” advocates saying that “EVERYONE SPEEDS!” (not true) and “STOP THE SPEEDERS!”

This leads to calls for predatory enforcement of posted speed limits. But 90% of posted speed limits are 8 to 16 MPH below the safest speeds (FHwA study), the speeds that the vast majority (97+%) of drivers travel, because the posted limits are set by non-engineer bureaucrats who think they “know what is best for us.”

The RADAR lobby, whose bottom line is M-O-N-E-Y not safety, wants the too-low, less safe limits to be strictly enforced. This means ticketing the 97+% for driving the safest speeds. It’s a Catch 22. Drive safely, do no harm, and get a ticket.

The RADAR lobby protest that it’s not about the M-O-N-E-Y, that municipalities only get $20 of each ticket. What about the other $140+/ticket? It goes to a laundry list of “good causes,” and directly to Harrisburg. This is a powerful incentive for the Legislature to give RADAR to municipal police.

Why no push for highway safety engineering speed limit studies? Why no push to set speed limits at the safest speeds? Maybe because there is no M-O-N-E-Y in it.

I think the answer to the opening question is,
M-O-N-E-Y is the reason for Speed Trap Bill SB 607.
Urge your Representative to vote NO on Speed Trap Bill SB 607. Thank you.

Sincerely,
Tom McCarey Member, National Motorists Association