What is a Speed Trap?

A speed trap is a section of highway or road along which traffic laws are heavily enforced. Usually, speed traps are located in areas where motorists tend to travel above the posted speed limit. Often speed trap locations are chosen due to an anomaly between the posted speed limit and the speed that drivers feel comfortable taking into account the road and traffic conditions.
This type of mismatch between the posted speed limit and good road conditions for a faster speed offers rich pickings for wrongheaded traffic police keen to hand out a book full of tickets. This type of speed enforcement alienates drivers and highlights stupidly low posted speed limits.
Rarely is a speed traps setup in relation to high crash statistics or other safety concerns. Police officer will often park next in a trap and pull over speeders who have been driving above the posted speed limit. Normally a vehicles speed will first be estimated by a police officer as visually driving above the speed limit. A traffic police officer can become very accurate a estimating speeds after a few years practice. Judging a vehicles speed at a distance of 100m within 5km/h is not unheard of among traffic police. After estimating the speed of a vehicle as travelling above the speed limit, an officer will train a laser or radar gun on the suspect vehicle to obtain a more accurate speed reading. (Estimation a vehicles speeds before training a laser or speed gun on a suspect vehicle is a necessary part of the “legal process.” Failure to “estimate” the speed first was necessary as most radar guns give false readings from time to time. If a police officer worked of the radar speed only, the driving public would be at risk of being charged falsely).

In heavily trafficked downtown areas, for example, speed limits tend to be low so that drivers do not inadvertently hit pedestrians or other motorists. Downtown areas tend to have greater potential for accidents because of sudden stopping and starting, quick lane changes, or other hazards such as pedestrians and school children. In other areas such as the open highway, speed limits are set higher to reflect better driving conditions with fewer vehicles and hazards.
In country areas, police tend to target visitors or people passing through. Traffic Police who live in a town, tend to avoid upsetting local town residents too much as they often socialise and live in the town. In many areas, locals are well aware of where these speed traps locations, which means that law enforcement tends to apprehend mostly out of town visitors more than locals.
In the United States, it is rare for police to charge drivers under 10 to 15 miles per hour over the speed limit. However, in cash strapped Australian states live Victoria, New South Wales and Western Australia, it is not uncommon for police to issue speeding tickets at a fraction of this speed at 4 kilometres per hour over the limit (about 2 and a half miles per hour).  

To highlight this absurdity, perhaps state governments could one day switch over to measuring speed at metres per hour enabling high fines for 1000m per hour over the speed limit (1km/h) with fines of $200 to $300  I’m sure that this will fill their pockets with enough cash to balance the budget.
Law enforcement agencies do have a legitimate job to target speeders who travel at excessive speeds. In 1985, the normal target minimum speed was 18+ km/h over the posted speed limit. As drivers have modified their behaviour and reduced average speeds in response to speed cameras, the minimum targeted speed has also reduced, making a mockery out of the system that now targets drivers for 3 to 4km/h over the posted limit. This wrongheaded approach to targeting drivers has generated a generation of “Speedo watchers” more intent on watching their speed dial than the road and traffic hazards.
Cash strapped state governments seeking quick and easy revenue, now target motorist as their “Cash Cow” to fiscal nirvana. Worse still is that this “highway robbery” is done under the banner of “road safety.”  

Some law enforcement officials believe that drivers who exceed a posted speed limit are putting themselves and other drivers at risk.  From my experience, I believe that most experienced intelligent traffic police believe this to me a myth, perpetuated by those with a vested interest.

The average motorist is no more a danger to himself or other motorists driving 5 to 10 km/h over the limit than driving 5km/h under the limit. In fact I can think of several reasons why a clever motorist may well be safer travelling 5 to 10km/h over the limit.

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