Speed Cameras = Safety Mechanism or Money Making Machine?

[Oni Koneko Damien]

Cops in New Jersey have a trick where they'll put an officer in an abandoned car on the side of the road with a radar gun. When he spots someone speeding, he radios ahead to another unit a mile up. And the state police in Illinois have several speed traps on I-55. They'll have a guy sitting on one side of an overpass, and it's impossible for you to actually see him until he's in your rear-view mirror. Then there's a line of 5 or 6 squad cars sitting on the on-ramp. I've seen lines of cars pulled over on the side of the road before. They're sneaky.

They pull these tricks on I-95 between Milwaukee and Chicago too. On weekends and holidays you'll usually see, every five miles or so, someone pulled over and three or four more patrol cars waiting their turn on an on-ramp.

[Durandal]

It's pretty common. On I-55, it's usually the state cops lurking around, but often small towns set up speed traps if parts of a highway or interstate pass through their borders. Generally what they'll do is drop the speed limit sharply (say, from 65 mph to 45 mph) for the part of the road that's within their control and then either poorly mark the new speed zone or clock drivers the second they enter the new speed zone, before they've had a chance to slow down.

Other small towns (East-coast towns, I think) that sit on an interstate will just find whatever excuse they can to impound your car, especially if you're from out-of-state. Then you get to either pay a gigantic fine to get your car back, or you have to challenge the violation in their town "courthouse" (usually a trailer with a judge on one side and a cash register on the other).

Sometimes it gets bad enough that a state will prevent that town from enforcing traffic laws on the highway.