A website could help you avoid spending that last $130 in your bank account on a speeding ticket.
- Jessica Boullion
- Jessica Boullion
- Left: A police officer pulls over a car on South State Street yesterday at 7:30 p.m. Top: Officer Gary Veld of the Department of Public Safety writes up a speeder during a night patrol shift in September 2004. (Photos by ANGELA CESERE AND TOMMASO GOMEZ)
- Jessica Boullion
Speedtrap.org, which is dedicated to notifying drivers where speed traps are located, warns motorists about 15 speed traps in Ann Arbor.
The website allows users to post the locations of speed traps, the level and time of enforcement as well as a detailed analysis of each trap.
The mission of the National Motorist Association, which maintains the website, is to “protect the interests of North American motorists.”
One of the speed traps listed is on Main Street near Pioneer High School – exactly where LSA junior Mike Hilton got a speeding ticket last week.
“He wrote me a ticket for 10 over,” said Hilton. His ticket will cost him $130.
Hilton said the website might have helped him avoid the ticket.
Sgt. Andrew Zazula of the Ann Arbor Police department said the term “speed trap” gives the wrong connotation. He said that the city has well-posted speed limits.
“If they’re not paying attention to what they’re doing, that’s their problem,” he said.
Zazula said the traps are usually created in response to an influx of excessive speed and a high accident rate in an area.
The traps posted on the website are not the only places people speed in Ann Arbor, he said.
“I guess I should go on (the website) and say that I’ve seen people running radar in every street in the city,” he said.
The site also gives advice on how to fight speeding tickets, such as beginning the challenge as soon as possible, pleading not guilty and hiring an attorney.
Police benefit from the site because it causes motorists to slow down in those areas, Zazula said.
Not enough time is spent on traffic enforcement, he said, noting that a lot of the issues that plague neighborhoods are traffic complaints.
“There are more complaints about traffic violations than violent crimes,” he said.
Michigan law stipulates that directs fines from traffic violations “be exclusively applied to support of public libraries.” The law is intended to prevent police from gaining revenue by the issue of traffic tickets.