Miata Mailing List: January 1999, Message #1506

sponsored by

  My favorite though, was in Rhode Island when they set
>up a car on the side, with the trunk open and jacked up, looking like
>someone changing a tire.  Lo and behold, right in front of it, out of view,
>was a cop running radar and down the road a half mile or so, there must
>have been 6 troopers ready for the chase in case you didn't see them flag
>you over

Sounds like a Georgia-type trick. On the way down to Atlanta in '97 for
the U2 concert, held on Thanksgiving Eve, we were tooling down I-75S.
>From a distance I noticed a blue car parked on a bridge that spanned the
interstate. I, of course, wasn't going but maybe 1-2 miles over the speed
limit, so I *tapped* my brakes to get everything in line. As I went under
the bridge, there was a trooper sitting in the car with a radar gun, aiming
it at cars as they were approaching. About .5 miles or so down the road
there were *at least* 10 trooper cars on the left side of the road, lights
going, in line, like kids at a carnival ride, waiting their turn to chase
down
them evil, evil speeders.

In Tennessee the governor approves money every year to pay local police
departments money to compensate officers working overtime in what
they call STEP (strategic traffic enforcement program.) They put a
plainclothes officer in a civvy car w/calibrated speedometer and instant
on radar. He finds his prey, paces, zaps and radios ahead to a marked
unit, which pulls the offender over. This year the governor extended the
money past summer. It makes a lot of money for the local constabulary.
It was *supposed* to be a means for controlling tractor-trailer
malfeasance. It's a money grab now.

Scott and Woody
President, Roadster Association of the Great Smokies (RAGS)
Teme Krispy Kreme
http://rags.tsx.org   http://mrmiata.tsx.org
"Wind in my hair, shifting and drifting,
mechanical music, adrenaline surge!"