150 Drivers Ticketed In About 2 Hours

In Orange County, Florida, the problem isn’t dashing through the snow — It’s cars darting down the street at high speeds.

So, in mid-December, the Orange County Sheriff’s Office decided to do something about it by launching Operation ELF: Enforcing Limits and Fining speeders. Here’s how it worked: a sheriff’s deputy dressed as an elf clocked cars using a radar gun then dispatched a motorcycle deputy to pull them over and issue the driver a ticket.

More than 150 tickets were written in just over two hours one December afternoon. Some people said using a holiday icon to enforce the law didn’t seem right.

“That’s specifically why we didn’t use Santa Claus,” Ken Wyne of the Orange County Sheriff’s Office said. “We didn’t choose a nativity scene. We chose an elf. An elf is known for their impish behavior. If you’re going to speed in Orange County, you never know who’s going to be on the street corner.”

The Orange County Sheriff’s Office continues to use various disguises throughout the holiday seasons. Watch Out!

I live in Lakeway, Texas. I have done alot of research about the laws that pertain to what I do. If you follow a few common sense rules, there will be no legal basis for any charges against you. But, that’s in Texas!Laws DO vary from state to state. So you’d better check out the laws in your state for yourself. In some cities/states, you CAN get in trouble for doing what I do.In the Links palette in the right column, there are links that direct you to some of the legal statutes in Texas.

Estelline uses speed-trap fines to finance nearly its entire budget

ESTELLINE — With his lean profile and weathered face, Officer Barney Gilley looks every bit the part of a West Texas lawman. Now and then, tourists stop and ask him to pose for snapshots in his mean-looking Dodge Charger squad car.

Most of the time, though, Gilley is the one making the introductions along U.S. 287 as it runs, briefly, through Estelline and its single blinking yellow light.

“People know me from Los Angeles to New York,” he says, a slight grin forming.

Gilley writes about 23 tickets a day to drivers who fail to slow as the wide, flat four-lane leaves the Panhandle’s red-dirt cotton fields and enters this farm town of 168 residents about a hundred miles southeast of Amarillo.

Despite a 1975 Texas law aimed at curbing speed traps, Estelline has been able to mine nearly its entire budget from motorists who fail to slow from 70 mph to 50 mph when they hit the city limits.

“We follow the state law,” said Estelline Mayor Rick Manley, whose current budget anticipates it will take in $320,000 in traffic fines this year. The town keeps some of the money but by law will have to give a chunk to the state.

Paying back the state

Texas’ speed-trap law uses an indirect approach to discourage small towns from relying too heavily on traffic tickets.

Under the law, which applies to towns of fewer than 5,000, nearly all traffic fines that exceed 30 percent of a city’s previous year’s total general revenues must be paid to the state. For instance, a town that takes in total revenues of $100,000 this year can keep only $30,000 in traffic fines next year, plus $1 for each ticket over the cap.

The law, which is enforced by the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts, prescribes no penalties — beside payment of money past due — for violations. And cities can grow their budgets each year by writing more tickets.

This year, Estelline will keep about $110,000 in highway fines, said Connie Mondragon, the municipal judge who also is working temporarily as city clerk.

“We’re able to increase our revenue a bit every year,” said Manley, a retired prison guard who moved to Estelline eight years ago.

At least five other small towns that aggressively ticket motorists appear to have learned how to live with Texas’ speed-trap law as well.

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Hello, and welcome to Speed Trap Ahead! I’m just getting the ball rolling on this website — learning how to work WordPress, domain hosting, emails, etc. And, all the while, wanting to get rolling, doing the thing this website is about.