The Pennsylvania Legislature - One More Reason For Disgust
This page documents the PA Legislature’s effort to pass a law allowing local police to use radar. Currently only the State Police are authorized to use radar. Local police can only use real-time devices like stop watches, speedometers or timing strips. Why is this not enough when the local police and District Justices do a fine job of alienating the public with these devices? They issue tickets in 25 MPH zones, at the bottom of hills and other places where a momentary lapse in concentration results in a violation. Give the local police radar and there will be thousands more of average people with contempt for law enforcement and state government.
In addition, these bills allow the local police to fund enforcement with proceeds from the traffic tickets. That is a conflict of interest and does not provide any checks or balances. Abuse will be rampant.
I expected law enforcement and district justices to be moral standards. But from my experience fighting traffic citations in local court, the corruption in the local courts and police departments is inordinate. The police lie or evade providing answers and the District Justice will misinform, try not to be fair or helpful and allow police misconduct. Even when police clearly violate PA Statutes while issuing citations, you can not win unless the District Justice is a confidant or you hire an expensive attorney. The qualifications to be a district justice is as follows: one yr local resident; minimum age of 21; maximum age of 70; must be state bar member or complete training course and pass exam. All you have to do is take a course and pass a test?
The PA map below shows the home district of active legislators that have sponsored these radar bills three or more times in the last 5 years. Seventy-five percent of them are from the Philly or Pittsburgh. The rest have major highways running through their district. What is the motivation of the local police in these areas to prompt their legislators to sponsor these bills? Will it help financially strapped metropolitan police fund their departments with speeding fines? Is there some other conflict of interest? I have not figured it out yet, if anybody knows please email me.
The names, number of sponsored bills and districts of the legislators plotted on the map are listed below.
Legislators, if speeding is a real problem, and you want to legalize radar then have 100% of the fines go to the State for road repair. This will require enforcement to be funded with local taxpayer money and take away any reason for abuse. Localities get a financial boost from major roads going through their territory (making it more attractive for development and increasing the tax base) and if speeding is a problem then fund enforcement with local dollars. For all other crime the local taxpayer funds enforcement, why is speeding different? If speeding endangers the local public then they should be willing to fund enforcement with local tax dollars. Get it?
Voters Please Take Action Before It's Too Late
Philly, Pittsburgh and all of PA you do not need these laws. If any of the current bills pass, you are going to get local police invading your space, wallet and time on your way to and from work, school, church, the store, sporting events and your life in general. Let’s send a message that we do not want these laws by contacting your legislator and voicing your opinion. In particular, if you don’t want these laws then we to vote out the legislators on the tables under the map that continuously sponsor new weasel-worded bills in an attempt to get this crap passed.
