Okay, so I finally had my first SpeedTrapAhead roadside event!

I was on my way home from work Friday evening, when I saw a cop pull up in the parking lot of the old Lake Travis Elementary. Sure enough, he turned around and poised himself to radar back toward the northbound traffic.

About 1,000 feet up the road, there was a perfect spot for me to set up. So, there I stood, holding my 2′ x 2′ hand held sign, waving my other hand and pointing at the sign.

You should have seen all the brake lights lighting up after drivers saw my sign. I am pretty confident that my alert kept several drivers from getting a speeding ticket.

You might think that speeders SHOULD get a ticket. While I would agree in many cases, that’s not what SpeedTrapAhead is all about. The average Joe doesn’t really deserve an expensive ticket, and the resulting increase in insurance premiums. We’ve all been a little heavy on the foot from time to time.

Those that ARE deserving of a ticket are probably zooming past me so quickly that they don’t even SEE my sign. They’ll get a ticket anyway — deservedly.

My sign holding causes people to slow down and think about how fast they are really driving. Most of the response I got from drivers and passengers was positive. A few folks even stopped and commented on what I was doing. I got lots of ‘honks’ and ‘thumbs-ups’. The picture in this post was taken by a supportive passerby. “Just Awesome! Thank You!”, was the response in her email. Another guy who lived in “The Hills” stopped and chatted for a bit. “You guys are AWESOME”, were the first words out of his mouth. He was concerned about unwarranted or outrageously expensive tickets as a way for cities to fatten their income and supplement their budget. Most jurisdictions have laws that set restrictions on how much of the department’s budget can be derived from traffic citations; but, those laws are rarely checked or enforced.

I’ll be out again soon! Any time, any place I see a cop blasting out radar, I’ll be not too far away, blasting out my message.