Brewster, New York Speed Traps

After you exit the Brewster US 6 US 202 NY 22 exit from Route I-684 northbound, or Route 84 East or Westbound, you will be on East Main Street (marked as Rte 6 and 202). As you head towards the Village of Brewster, you will pass a Mobil Gas Station on the left, the Bull and Barrel restaurant, also on the left. At that point you are at the crest of a hill. Lurking at the bottom of the crest, in the left hand parking lot at the Main Street (a right) and South 22 ‘T’ junction will usually be a Brewster Village Police Department car. They exist for ONE reason – to write tickets. This so-called “police department” defers actual law enforcement to the Putnam County Sheriffs Department and NY State Police.

Not a day goes by that the Brewster Village Police Department is not writing tickets and residents are disgusted that their town is nothing more than a speed trap that raises revenue for the tiny village.

They will also sometimes lurk on side streets just before Bull and Barrel, even further extending their range beyond the Village of Brewster.

New York State has deployed a traffic monitoring system on select interstates and parkways. You can see them in the medians. They consist of pressure treated wooden poles with a device mounted on top. There are also a small solar panels on top for charging the units. Look closely in the medians and you will see them. This system was designed to monitor traffic speed and volume. It’s apparently being used to detect speeders for the police. It will alert to a high speed vehicle and send an alert to the nearest patrol. It’s not a speed camera but it let’s them know when a speeder is coming.

Trooper(s) sit in the dirt on the left (headed north) as you down the hill just after the rest area itself (but not after the areas exit back onto the highway) There is a large mound of dirt to hide them there and a large area in front to accomodate upto 10 trooper cars. They pick off speeders but wait to pull them over untill they get around the bend and out of motorists view coming down the hill and past the trap. Headed south on the same hill as you get the to top there is a turn around spot just past the top they like to pick off SB drivers at. You dont see him untill you get to the top. The limit is 65 but traffic does anywhere from 60 to 80. Its the luck of the draw I suppose. Happy Driving!

Enforced by the nearby State Trooper and Town Sheriff, as the Trooper initiated the pullover and the Sheriff came in behind her. It looked like she was hiding (as I didn’t see her), in one of the small parking lots around the stores along N. Brewster Rd. They appear to be fairly serious about getting the fines involved, but she was nice to me about that whole "nearly backing into her car because she was tailgating me" thing. She only gave me one ticket for that. In short, chances are they’ll give you two tickets along the ‘garaunteed income’ theory. She was kind enough to mention that if I only fought the speeding ticket, that the courts were lenient in Brewster.

I am a regularly on this interstate. I have NO idea what the speed limits are (it’s posted at 55 mph). You have to drive at 70 to keep up (I guess the theory goes that this road is close to the big city…New York that the speeds have to be kept at 55, when in reality it passes through what appears to be a pretty rural area all the way to White Plains and the traffic is pretty sparse except on weekends when the traps are really active, what with all the rich New Yorkers going to their homes in the country!). The police (state) are out there constantly with their traps (sometimes three police cars handle the large volume). It’s very frustrating as you simply have NO idea what the speed limits actually are. With the great discrepency between the posted speed and the actual speed the police can be completely arbitrary and still fulfill their quotas (I was told by a freind and former police officer that the State Police do not have strict quotas, but woe to the officer that doesn’t produce at least 6 tickets per shiFort He also told me that most of these officers sign up for doing "real police" and find that after 5 or 6 years they are so bummed out the daily routine of soley handing out tickets, they have a tendency to get really nasty). They also do construction on this road with their double fines! This type patroling makes a mockery of the law.