Is it ethical for radio stations to reveal police speed trap locations?

Not in my book! I call it “aiding and abetting.”

If the goal is reducing speeding, it increases the effectiveness of speed traps.

If the goal is collecting fines, it does not help.

Speed traps aren’t ethical. Police are supposed to use an “escalation of force”. The first stage of that is physical presence. This is where people see cops and say “Oh my, I should obey the law.”

Next is verbal commands etc. But the point is a squad car should make itself known. Speed traps are about money.

@all Thanks different viewpoints.

No. Speeders put lives at risk every day. I’m disgusted by the simple slap on the hand they get in court. Every time I have a close call thanks to a speeder I pray for karma to get them.

Speed traps are usually about revenue raising. If warning drivers of where they are slows the drivers down, they’ve done no harm. They’ve reminded people of the penalties for speeding, that speed traps can be anywhere and the drivers have driven more slowly. The only harm is the government’s coffers.

People who are driving over the speed limit are well aware of this fact. And if a radio Jock is telling his/her listeners that “YO” there is a cop taking radar at X/Y intersection….it will be a win win for both the listeners and the police as the listeners will inevitably slow down no matter where they are and the cops win by not having to write a shit load of tickets and waste their time in court. I often hear radio stations give notice of police speed traps/road blocks often and with the times and places they will occur.

Maybe if they were ticketed with big fines they’d never speed again instead of just slowing down for the occasional speed trap. Lives could be saved if they’d just learn their lesson. Leave your effing house earlier.

I’m fine with it. The police should be too. Isn’t the point about speed traps to slow cars down, because the faster speeds are dangerous? That’s supposed to be the point. If the radio announcement slows people down then the roads are safer.

If the trap is just about easy revenue then I guess the police won’t be happy, but too bad.

@JLeslie You say too bad, but you should see where my money is going because I was fined for driving without insurance. I drove without insurance for three weeks due to temporary financial hardship but I’m fucked now because I was caught, yet habitual speeders get away with breaking the law. I’m a safe driver while they aren’t but I need to pay more for my hardship. I’m livid. Fuck speeders. I hope they get caught.

@dammitjanetfromvegas Don’t get me wrong, people who drive at very high speeds, or who drive recklessly even in other ways, should be ticketed. Driving 5 miles over the speed limit shouldn’t cause a ticket though, and my husband got a ticket for that. Waste of time. Everyone told him to show up in court and it would be thrown out, it was. Plenty of people will still be speeding through the trap, and getting ticketed, don’t worry. People living in the area get to know where the speed traps are anyway. I think the speed traps so slow people down, some people easily go 15 and 20 mph over the speed limit, and typically that is dangerous. Just the presence of a cop now and then, or a speed alert thingy, is enough to slow people down, but sure, a ticket kind of drives it home to slow down.

Some of the speed limits are ridiculously low.

The goal should be safety in the end is all I’m saying. Not what’s easiest to make revenue.

How often do I see people drive really recklessly, and not necessarily speeding? The only time I saw people pulled over for it was when I lived in MD. People weaving through traffic and things like in MD they emphasized ticketing for people who didn’t stop at an intersection before turning right (the cops were a little too crazy with that one, but overall I agree just rolling through into the street is scary wrong) and often didn’t fuss with people speeding a little. Every other state I’ve lived in I’ve never seen someone pulled over for weaving through traffic in a dangerous fashion, or not signaling, or no lights on during fog and rain. All of that is dangerous.

How did the cop find out you were uninsured? Why were you stopped in the first place? It sucks you were caught during the few weeks you were driving without insurance, but it’s a little idealistic to think there is no way you might cause an accident. Any of us can make a mistake. The last accident I had was in a parking lot at 5 or 10 miles an hour.

I think so but it depends. Around here everyone speeds on the interstates and main highways. If you are not keeping up with traffic you are forcing everyone to pass, alter course, change lanes etc. That makes the people going the speed limit a liability, especially the ones who sit in the left lane doing the limit. Speed traps that focus on highways are simply about revenue and reporting those is fine with me. The other kind is catching folks speeding in residential areas and side streets. People who speed here are quite dangerous and I don’t have a problem with speed traps when they are actually doing a service.

Of course it is OK.

First, by the time the radio announces it, the cops may have moved.

Second, since the goal is to slow drivers down, simply announcing the speedtrap is enough to slow a lot of people down to avoid being ticketed. Win-win.

Remember that speed traps are about safety, not about raising revenue.

I agree with @Blackberry and @jaytkay. Radio warnings are as ethical as police hiding in the bushes waiting to pounce. Blackberry writes about the police policy, An Escalation Force, practiced in most democracies, which is based upon police presence and not a hidden force waiting in the background with handcuffs ready. These are the techniques of a secret interior police force inevitably found in dictatorships and are a dangerous, slippery slope for a democracy to allow. Americans, however, world famous for being asleep at the wheel of their own democracy, are allowing these and other things such as the militarization of their police forces without a murmur. In these days of police department drones, do you really believe the police in America will respect your backyard privacy or not look into your windows if given the opportunity? I

n the present political environment, where after a rash of questionable, deadly police shootings followed by a couple cops meeting their death in the same way, the response of our top Justice Department official is to get on nationwide TV and complain that “our police are reluctant to draw because of the latest popular backlash against these police shootings and it is getting them killed.” And the country actually registered sympathy for a police force that, instead of instituting change, circles the wagons and insists that the policies at the root of the cause of these shootings are appropriate and need to be strengthened. Do you really trust that our police are working for you, that they are here to protect and serve their communities? If you do, I have a really fine Rolex I’d like to sell you.

Speeding tickets are about state revenue, Nothing else. If governments were interested in safety they would give me the option to give my fine to a charity of my choice rather than the very operation that issued me the citation. Conflict of interest in a bottle.

Why the obsession with limiting speed in the United States? Easy. Speed enforcement is the easiest (least expensive) method to separate a motorist from their hard earned cash. The police are not only greedy, they are lazy.

I’ve noticed time and time again that my cars do not suddenly fly out of control and burn in a crash the moment I exceed a given and arbitrary posted limit.

One safety related reason for speed limits is to reduce the severity of auto crashes. This would not be so necessary if motorists drove according to other traffic rules and in an active, undistracted manner.

For example, in my hometown of Sarasota, FL the average age of drivers is quite high. Instead of strictly following guidelines for driver fitness speeds are set insanely low (35MPH), Lights are timed extremely long (To reduce the number of hazardous changes in a given day) And red left turn arrows are everywhere (Sacrificing my opportunity to turn through a cycle to protect those whose depth perception left them years ago.).

If jurisdictions gave a damn about overall driving safety they would enforce the many laws already on the books, not just velocity, as they do especially in Germany.

Enforcement agencies would also invest in modern equipment that detects far more serious faux pas such as following too closely, lane discipline (keep right except to pass) and other things that reduce the number of accidents regardless of speed.

@SecondHandStoke When I lived in Pinellas and Hillsborough county near Tampa the lights at the intersections were insanely long. Many taking 4 minutes to complete. It was horrific. I think it leads to more accidents and dangerous driving. I wonder what the real stats are? I went through more yellow lights my 3 years there than in my 25 years of driving before that. I did not want to get stuck at an intersection! Two miles could easily take 15 minutes. It was ridiculous. Not to mention sitting that long waiting for a green light made texting, Facebook, and phone calls more inviting.

^ Once upon a time the State of Florida noticed it’s Interstate highways were crumbling. Florida had used cheap methods and contractors to build them. Interstate 75 between Tampa and Naples was coming apart, barely after that section was finished!

So Florida called the Federal Government, wanting it to help pay for repairs to it’s poor, poor Interstates.

The Federal Government looked at Florida’s highway accident fatality rates and it was very cross. Fed said that too many people were dying on Florida’s roads.

Fed said it would give Florida the money they needed but Florida would have to bring the number of deaths down.

Florida knew it had no choice. So Florida reduced speed limits and increased strict enforcement. This was the cheapest way to influence it’s motoring public.

But not only did Florida get it’s money from Fed, but fine revenues increased too!

Florida likes money. Now it got even more than it expected.

But Florida did nothing to encourage other ways of making driving safer. Years later Governor Jeb Bush even vetoed a bill to strictly enforce proper lane discipline. He even said the concept was “elitist.” The Governor made some drivers very angry because they wanted orderly and predictable traffic movement around them.

And only a few drove happily ever after.

^^Interesting story. I don’t remember southeast FL having long intersection lights like that. I’m heading back that way now, I’ll see if it has changed. On the east coast the roads always seemed pretty good to me. FL luckily gets lots of money from tourism. We also are at the end, so our highways probably get less heavy load wear than a state more towards the middle. Although, we have a pretty large population so we still have a lot of shipments going back and forth.

I used to live in the mid south and if you wanted to drive in some crappy roads try Mississippi! So bad, and no excuse like very harsh winters. In the last three years some of those roads have finally been resurfaced after years of a really bad situation.

Yes, as far as I’m concerned.