> That enforcement is particularly active on the north side of town, where U.S. Route 165 shifts from a divided highway to a five-lane road. Just before drivers reach a welcome sign, the speed limit drops from 65 mph to 50. Police cruisers often wait nearby, in a stand of trees across from a small roadside cemetery.
Louisiana has many small highways like Route 165 where the speed limit changes in towns. Having grown up in the state, I know of many speed traps like Fenton. Most people would know to reduce their speed. However, Louisiana has little traffic enforcement in general and speeding on rural roads is very common.
The state should definitely put up more signs outside the town warning them to slow down. More warnings should be issued rather than tickets as well. But Louisiana also needs to improve its driving.
RS 32:61 [1] mandates a speed limit drop there (though only to 55) because it goes from multilane divided highway to multilane highway.
A frontage road, and merge/exit lanes as needed, and keep it divided highway the whole way and then it's no longer an issue.
We use highways and interstates as main streets way too much in Louisiana.
A five-lane road is already hard to cross, regardless of the traffic speed. I understand that this design is common in the US, but it boggles my mind that people would even consider crossing a road of that size as a pedestrian unless the traffic speed was 15 mph or less. Something like that would be solved by a bridge or tunnel in developed countries.
But more realistically, in other countries the 4-lane road would go around the village, and a 2-lane road with a low speed limit through it.
In either case the liability of towns or the well-being of the people who live there do not factor into design decisions of villages whatsoever.
A footbridge doesn't serve anyone in power, and nobody locally would use it. A tunnel in south Louisiana, even that far inland, is logistically stupid even with good intentions.
1: I was born and raised in the Louisiana terminus of 165, which is only a little larger than Fenton, and Fenton is only one of about a dozen such small towns on that route.
Gosh, how we even survive here, every town is a speed trap town!
Likewise, locals who do speed through on the regular have a Fraternal Order sticker or a relative of the DA on speed-dial knowing the cop who issues that ticket will conveniently fail to show up to court and the fine will get dismissed.
https://www.google.com/maps/@30.3778051,-92.9108282,3a,75y,2...
The two pairs of signs are another reason.
The end of the divided highway is further reason.
and as the article clearly shows, they don't.
I'm sure i there are such things in CA, as well, on US-101 or 1; i just don't remember them being a major part of any commute between cities.
*i was wrong! It wasn't Woodworth (on US-165 near Alexandria), it is Fenton, on US-165 near Lake Charles. 165 is fairly well known for being a ticket magnet highway around these parts, so an easy mistake to make. Also, US-165 through alexandria has a speed limit of 50-60 MPH and is multiple lanes. This feels different than having to go ~30MPH on a 3 lane with a huge median, like in Woodworth, Glenmora, etc.
Sometimes there is reform[1] for the egregious offenders[2] with enough media coverage (and it probably helps when they ticket the wrong person's relative).
[1] https://www.al.com/news/2022/04/inside-the-remarkable-rise-a...
[2] https://www.al.com/news/2022/01/police-in-this-tiny-alabama-...
If they really care about public safety, they would design their traffic situations so that people are less likely to speed. You can do a lot with clever traffic design, and it's more effective than simply fining everybody.
But of course that costs money rather than bringing it in. Considering traffic fines are their primary source of income, I think they strongly prefer unsafe driving over safe driving.
The typical adult living here makes in the ballpark of $20,000 a year and has a kid.
I don't think the town will pool together money anytime soon for a public works project.
The problem is that the desire isn’t really to curb traffic issues here. The existence of this ticketing setup serves several purposes, but ensuring the health and safety of the populace by reducing speed is only a secondary goal here, if even a goal.
Essentially they become judge, jury & executioner.
I find LA and OH's small town justice to be rather quaint, to be honest.
In short, the key thing about European speed cameras in my experience that makes them reasonable and effective is that they are actually designed and implemented as a way to slow people down, not as a moneymaking agenda
Side note I think Norway has gone just a bit too far with them. Especially in Oslo area
But you can still challenge it in court if you disagree. But you must be pretty sure it wasn't you, because there will be photographic evidence.
It is effective, but it might also be unpopular enough with the locals that you lose the next election. Especially if the measures inconvenience them.
I think the incentive for cities such as Fenton is a bit more specific: they want to fine unsuspecting strangers, who don't vote in local elections, while not bothering the locals too much.
You can interpret this as a modern, legal version of ye olde highwaymen. But there is a catch: transiting traffic is a genuine local problem (exhalations, noise, not contributing to local economy), so the incentive to make some money on it isn't as completely evil as it would be otherwise.
Except in this case there's a random aspect to the toll, and you can avoid the toll by knowing the situation and lowering your speed in time. I'm pretty sure the locals are all familiar with the situation and know how to avoid these fines.
As the article mentions that's the policy:
> tickets are rarely issued unless drivers are going more than 11 mph over the limit, he said.
This is the big part. Ever heard of trias politica?
How is such a thing even possible/legal? Checks and balances and so on.
They got (imho) the lowest speed limits in any of the countries I've travelled, cameras everywhere (that's good though), and even on their "motorways" (imagine crappy roads in the US in the 60s, but worse) the limit is something silly like 60km/h. So for anyone that is simple crossing through the country (N-S Estonia-->Latvia-->Lithuania or S-N) it is a nerve breaking experience to be forced to drive 30-60km/h while CROSSING A WHOLE (small) country.
When I read the article I thought exactly that. Shitty country, shitty roads, shitty speed limits, it's as if they do it on purpose to fine every foreigner and they don't upgrade their infrastructure.. How will that country ever prosper when any/all transportation has to go with 30km/h?
Well played Latvia.. you are the Fenton of the Europe!
And it's somehow on purpose and they should let you drive above the speed limit because 'you know'?
Prepare to avoid Belgium because they're lowering the tolerance on the speed radar and you might get a ticket for driving 5kmh above the speed limit.
Even on the brand new highways.
But maybe the more interesting discussion would be, why, apart from the obviously not true 30kph national speed limit, Latvia seems to be doing okay without this excess of speed?
And energy is quadratic with respect to velocity. Going 90->105 is worse than 30->45. The only difference is that a 30 zone is usually a densely populated area, so the risks are different.
I'm not sure where you are, but from my driving elsewhere, it appears similar in Sweden (only the posted speeds are higher), and worse in Spain & Italy.
And energy is quadratic with respect to velocity. Going 90->105 is worse than 30->45.
Since the speed delta is the same it's far worse with 30 to 45, and regulations reflect that.
> Since the speed delta is the same it's far worse with 30 to 45, and regulations reflect that.
If E(v) = mv²/2, then E(v+dv) = m(v+dv)²/2 = mv² + m v dv/2 + m dv²/2. As you can see, the middle term is proportional to v, the initial speed. Kinetic energy does increase more going 90->105 than 30->45.
Maybe this is too abstract, so he're a concrete example. Let's assume a vehicle weighing 1 ton (1000 kg).
* Going 30 km/h => kinetic energy is 34 kJ
* Going 45 km/h => kinetic energy is 78 kJ, so about 43 kJ more
* Going 90 km/h => kinetic energy is 312 kJ
* Going 105 km/h => kinetic energy is 425 kJ, so about 113 kJ more
It's really basic physics.
How rude. They were economically shattered by being occupied by the USSR for decades. Lay off.
Belgium has normal speed limits, fortunately, but poorly maintained roads. It wouldn't be unreasonable if through traffic from Netherland and France somehow paid a bit for that.
I don't understand why you saw the need to make up something this ridiculous. The standard speed on all surfaced roads is 90 kph, and up to 120 kph on major roads like the E67 that connects Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
https://youtu.be/864PunevIxY?si=Xl7Tgi_CUIpWDmtw
Spoiler: the mayor was the judge
- "A ticket for 81 in a 50"
- "61 mph in a 50 mph zone"
- "driving 71 mph in a 50"
- "65 in a 50 mph zone"
It does not seem as though ProPublica was able to pull any cases where drivers were just a few mph over the limit. The mayor definitely should not be the judge. The town should not be threatening people with license revocations, either. But you could say that Fenton just really cares about public safety. The solution here is pretty simple-- watch the road and follow the speed limit.
I also don't know why the state is still processing license suspensions from Fenton. Louisiana should simply stop processing these requests.