Friday, April 25, 2008

Summons Meter

Either the Westbrook Police have become more lenient, or they have run out of inattentive drivers to ticket. According to the 'Westbrook Police Notes' section in the American Journal, there were 23 summonses for traffic-related crimes* during April 9-15.

For context, there were 27 summonses last week, 80 summonses the week before that, and 108 between March 13 and March 20.

- John C.L. Morgan

* Traffic-related crimes include, but are not limited to: Carrying passengers beyond restriction, driving wrong way on a one-way street, expired inspection sticker, expired registration, expired temporary plates, expired temporary registration, failure to notify of address change, failure to obey lane sign, failure to provide proof of insurance, failure to yield to a pedestrian in a crosswalk, following too closely, illegal attachment of plates, illegal transportation of alcohol, improper passing, inspection violation, operating after suspension, operating an unregistered vehicle, operating under the influence, operating with a suspended registration, operating with an expired license, operating without lights after dark, permitting unlawful use of a motor vehicle, red light violation, seatbelt violation speeding, stop sign violation, and, of course, the uncouth operation of a Hummer.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Well - I guess there is not enough in the way of REAL traffic violation in the town of Westbrook, so the Westbrook police have to set up dangerous traps in order to trick people into committing violations. I was an observer on Friday afternoon (at about 2:30 p.m.) of a plainclothes police woman who purposely stood in the crosswalk so her fellow police officers could "catch" the drivers who drove by. Keep in mind she was at leat 2 -3 feet out into the crosswalk, which meant in the heavy traffic people couldn't see her until they were almost on top of her. In the process people had to slam their brakes on and a few hapless people got pulled over and probably got some rather expensive traffic violations. The whole process caused quite a traffic bottleneck and several close calls. I think the Westbrook police should reflect on their practices of trying to catch more people committing traffic violations by asking themselves if they aren't endangering people themselves. It is a very poor showing of those we are supposed to trust.