The thread in GD earlier this week about Texas being really hard toward drunk drivers got me wondering about this.
For the record I’m all for tough DUI laws. But cops in certain areas of Texas are notorious for pulling drivers over for BS reasons - getting too close to the center line, going two miles over the speed limit, talking on your cell phone, etc. This is especially true in the Piney Woods of East Texas.
My guess is that this has mainly to do with the need to generate revenue. Other than the lumber industry and a few poultry plants, there’s nothing there, so I’m guessing the tax base isn’t too big. The local governments there need to raise money somehow and fleecing motorists is a pretty easy way of doing that.
It’s really unfortunate too, because to get from Houston, where I used to live, to the Midwest, where my family lived, you had to drive through East Texas - that is unless you wanted to take a long detour through Dallas or New Orleans.
Any other parts of the country where you need to watch your back while you’re behind the wheel?
Isn’t there some cocaine corridor from Florida to New York that always has the heat on?
Someone here once linked to an article about New Rome, Ohio, a town of sixty with fourteen part-time police officers that made $400,000 in citations. A few years ago, the state dissolved the town because of the abuses. Here is the Wikipedia article about it.
Empire Colorado.
A little mountain town just off the interstate, on the way to the ski areas. A nice big broad road through the 6 blocks town with some absurd 20 mile an hour or so limit. They used to fund the entire city through tickets.
The route from Gainesville FL to Jacksonville is pretty notorious. There are several shithole towns such as Starke, Waldo, and Lawtey that you want to speed through just to get the hell away from them, but they are well-known as speed traps.
The only place I make sure to go at the speed limit is Main Street in Norwich, VT. They say 25 and they mean it.
I’d say most interstates between two cities that are reasonably close. Phoenix to Tucson on I-10 is pretty bad. Columbus, OH to to Cleveland on I-71 was also pretty bad.
Interstate 80, coming over the hill from Nevada into California. I guess they figure the folks coming back from Reno might have a little money left and be inclined to push the limit.
There’s a stretch on the main highway between Sydney and Canberra that’s quite notorious. It’s a few kilometres either side of Goulburn, where the state police training college is located.
Linndale, Ohio (near Cleveland).
100 yards of I-71 + an overpass to hide under = 80% of village revenue!
Interstate 95 near Baltimore is notorious for this. They git me once.
Yep, I-95 both north and south of the city is full of cops in unmarked cars. I’ve seen a Dodge Hemi, a Mustang and various pick-ups.
Interstate 83, in Pennsylvania from the Maryland state line to at least York, has lots of little parky spots on the side of the road that the cops can back into, angled so they are hidden, but can pull out right after speeders. They’re quite zealous.
Tift County, GA
Years ago, before the Interstates, there were quite a few towns in Georgia and the Carolinas that did good business with speed traps. I remember driving down in the late 60s (there were Interstates, but the sections near these towns – and around South of the Border – that, for some mysterious reason, still hadn’t been completed) and my father being wary. One particular town at a stop light in the center of town – but no yellow light. It would turn red without warning, and the cops would stop you if you were in the intersection, even if the light was green when you entered it.
I saw that a lot on I-81 in Virginia, about halfway between Tennessee and Maryland. It’s sparsely populated and mountainous, with lots of hills, dips, and rises that are perfect for cops hiding.
The rural areas south of Jackson, Mississippi – both along I-55 and along Highway 49 – are notorious for this. Along Hwy 49 (which connects Jackson to the touristy beach areas on the Gulf Coast) there are many fake construction zones, intended to spring 35-mph speed limits upon drivers going the usual 55.
Good to know - thanks for the tip!
That’s exactly how this stretch of 83 is; fairly rural, and very hilly. You don’t even see the cops till you pass them.
Seconded. The town is so small that its cops actually have to leave the jurisdiction to even get onto the highway, but they grind out a whole lotta tickets. There was once a bill introduced in the General Assembly to prohibit similarly-situated towns from doing this, but nothing’s come of it.
Summersville, WV. The speed limit goes from 65 to 45mph on US Rt. 119, and it’s notorious for it’s speed traps. According to the wiki article, they wrote over 18,000 tickets in 2001. Not bad for a town of less than 4000 people.