"You can?t fight City Hall!"You?ve heard that phrase so often it has become a cliché. Those who say it and mean it are usually in the employ of City Hall. The truth is you can fight City Hall... and win.

Speed traps are often used by municipalities as one method of generating revenue to run the government. "Safety" is given as the excuse for running a speed trap, but the real reason boils down to money. The police department wants more money for equipment and salaries. The City wants more money to avoid raising taxes. Local residents and businesses often go along with local speed traps because it reduces local taxes, and besides, they?re usually not the drivers who get the tickets anyway. A "win win" situation for everybody in town, but not for the poor saps that suffer fines, points and insurance surcharges in the name of "safety."

The worst kind of speed trap is the one that is set up to deliberately entrap motorists and extort money for the benefit of police agencies or local governments. These speed traps employ absurdly low speed limits, intense enforcement, deliberately confusing signage (or no signage), and dishonest and or abusive local courts. Non-residents of the community are singled out for tickets to avoid invoking the wrath of local voters and influential citizens who might demand an end to such an unethical system of law enforcement.

However, any person, if persistent enough, can take meaningful action to eliminate the classic speed trap. There are multiple approaches to bringing public and private wrath down upon the perpetrators of speed traps.

With sufficient prodding local businesses can be effective in lobbying for the end of community speed traps. One way to prompt this kind of lobbying is to convince business owners that the local speed trap is costing them money, or is about to cost them money. This can be done by sending letters to local businesses and the chamber of commerce stating that you and anyone you can convince accordingly, will not be shopping in that community until the use of speed traps is discontinued. Copies of your letters should be sent to the local newspapers, radio and TV stations, and to the mayor or other head of the government that sponsors the speed trap.

To add a little momentum to your efforts you may want to purchase small ads in surrounding community newspapers that identify the speed trap and ask for fellow victims to contact you. If you generate some additional interest and help, the media and local officials will start to take you more seriously. With the aid of fellow speed trap victims, or even without their aid, you can print up simple "fliers" to be posted in grocery stores, taverns, public buildings, and anyplace else with a bulletin board. The fliers can identify the targeted speed trap and list the responsible local officials, along with information on how to contact those officials to complain about the speed trap and its effect on the community?s reputation and business activity.

The combination of economic sanctions (loss of business) and embarrassment of local officials may generate pressure to eliminate the speed trap, or at least reduce its most abusive characteristics. This isn?t all you can do.

If a local village or city is using a state or county highway as a speed trap you may be able to provoke the state or county officials sufficiently to have them force the end of the speed trap. For example, if the speed limit is severely under-posted you can request a copy of the traffic engineering study that sanctioned such a low speed limit. (You can use a "public information request" or "freedom of information request" to force the release of this study, if the public agency won?t willingly release it.) More often than not, no such study exists. There are exceptions, but all states require a traffic engineering study to support an unusual or abnormally low speed limit. Even if a traffic engineering study exists, it may not support the speed limit posted by the local unit of government.

If the posted speed limit is 35 mph, but the traffic engineering study says the limit should be 55 mph, the speed limit should be considered illegal and unenforceable. Unfortunately, it may take a civil lawsuit and a forced refund of fines to actually get the municipality to comply. However, if the municipality is dependent on state or county funds they can be coerced by the state or county to eliminate the speed trap, or at least raise the speed limit to a more appropriate level.

All elected officials give lip service to the belief that underhanded and exploitative speed enforcement should not be used as a means to extort money from honest responsible citizens. It?s fair game to ask them to put substance behind their words. You have every right to ask your state legislators to pass a law that will reduce, if not eliminate the abuses common to speed traps.

Here are some approaches you can suggest to your state senator or representative:

1. Require that any posted speed limit that differs from the standard speed limit for a given type of road or highway (speed limits for urban areas or rural highways are generally specified in state statutes) be supported by a legitimate traffic engineering study that determines the 85th percentile speed of free flowing unimpeded traffic. The posted speed limit should not be adjusted downward more than five miles per hour below the 85th percentile speed, as determined by the traffic engineering study.
2. Establish a limit on the percent of local revenues that any community can generate through traffic fines. Any local unit of government that is generating more than 10% to 20% of its total revenue from fines is abusing traffic enforcement for revenue enhancement purposes.
3. Require that a high percentage (75 %) of all traffic fines AND RELATED COSTS be transferred to an unrelated state fund, e.g. public education, emergency relief, or public library aids.
4. Prohibit the use of electronic speed measurement devices to enforce speed limits that have not been determined through the use of an official traffic engineering study.
5. Require specific and proper training for any person using electronic devices for speed enforcement purposes.
6. Provide that any motorist charged with a traffic violation has the automatic right for a change of venue to a court of record (from a local administrative or municipal court).
7. Prohibit the use of electronic speed measurement devices to clock vehicles within 100 yards of a speed limit sign that reduces the speed limit.

Several states already have laws that outlaw speed traps. Most of them can be found here or by clicking on STATE LAWS in the Directory, and will give you specific examples to share with your state representatives or senators.

By giving your legislator concrete and realistic suggestions you will have made it difficult for he or she to just ignore your request. Getting a bill drafted and introduced is still a long way from getting it passed into law, but it sure is a good start in the right direction.

Sample letter to send to your Legislator

On a very personal and individual level there is yet another way to challenge and oppose speed traps -- fight your ticket.

Fight your ticket with the full knowledge and expectation that you will have to appeal your conviction to a higher, more legitimate, court. This accomplishes a variety of objectives. First, you force the operators of the speed trap to take their time and money to prosecute you. Second, if you are well prepared, a competent judge may decide to formally chastise the speed trap operators, especially if they have violated an existing state law. And, finally, there?s a good chance the charges against you will be dismissed.