Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Speed Traps

Coming south on I79 across the Neville Island Bridge over the Ohio River. The speed limit drops to 45MPH when you come off the bridge and stays there for about 2 miles. Troopers hide around the bend coming up the hill. They occasionally have radar controlled digital traffic signs running so don’t be fooled if your radar detector goes off for the signs. The troopers use instant on radar and will get you.

The sneaky motorcycle cop hides behind a parked car. as you pass through the intersection of Brighton Road and Marshall Ave, headed to Pittsburgh, and he pulls people over for reasons unclear. The trap is right before the bend before Oliver High School.

The posted speed limit on West Carson Street is 35 mph. It is not uncommon for vehicles to be traveling in excess of 55 mph on this road. The speed limit in my opinion is a little low, although, it is not low to the point of being absurd or unreasonable. Over the years, there have been many violent accidents on this road. There is one lane inbound on this stretch and two outbound. Due to the limited access and few traffic lights, near everyone that uses this road has been guilty of speeding on it, even the city of Pittsburgh police who often pass me on this road when I’m doing the speed limit. However, occasionally, the Pittsburgh Police traffic division set up their speed traps. Watch your VASCAR lines. There are two different sets of them. The one is about a mile or so after the Corliss tunnel and the other is a few blocks before Tabor Street. If you use this road a lot, memorize where those two sets of lines are. When they do the speed traps they will pull groups of cars over at a time. Inbound, they will nab you after the Corliss Tunnel, near where the Busway merges in. Outbound, they will nab you at Stanhope at the Car Wash. In both occasions, you will not see them until you have already plowed through the lines.

Another favorite haunting ground for the Pittsburgh Police Traffic Division to set up their mass speed traps. When they do their traps, they will pull over as many cars as they can catch in a shot, whether it is 2 or 20. When you are traveling on McKnight Road towards Pittsburgh and continue past the I-279 South On-Ramp, you will go down a steep hill. At the bottom of the hill, there is a traffic light, which usually favors the McKnight Road traffic. Once you go through the light, the McKnight ends and becomes Evergreen Road. Shortly past the light, there are VASCAR lines. A traffic cop will sit back there and time you. Once you get to Baytree Street, there is concrete barrier on the right. On the other side of the barrier, there are parking spaces for people who live in the houses, which are usually vacant. One these traffic sting days, there will be a cop at the light. If you were playing the role of a good little motorist that day, the cop will wave you through. However, if you were being a bad boy, they will pull you into that parking area behind the barrier and ticket you. I’ve been told that if you are moderately above the speed limit, they won’t bother you (although this can all be in which officers were running the trap and what kind of mood they are in–not worth taking the chance). Frequently, they nab people for going 55mph or higher through here, as it’s easy to pick up speed down that hill and once the road chances into Evergreen, the speed limit drops to 35mph I do believe. Be careful through there. It’s quite the hefty fine.

US19 is a 4 lane divided highway between the Cranberry Twp border on the north (where PA turnpike and I79 converge with US19)for several miles south to the Wexford business district. The speed limit is set at 40mph, while adjacent 2 lane curvy roads have a 35mph speed limit. This stretch of highway is well-known locally for being a speed trap but is recently being even more strictly enforced (see http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/search/s_189937.html).
Some monitoring is necessary as there are some dangerous spots (red lights at bottoms of hills, where traffic from neighborhoods comes out and could easily be hit be a speeder running the light), but on lengthy stretches with no access, a 55mph speed would be totally reasonable.