Tom McCarey

Berwyn

I also sent this letter to Bellefonte Councilwoman Barbara Dann:

It is likely that you get your RADAR information from actors directly in RADAR’s revenue stream: government, police, courts and auto insurers. Their information is anecdotal, urban legend and misinformation. Their goal is to give RADAR to municipal police to raise revenue. They should be disqualified because of the financial conflict of interest.

Their premise is that there is a “speeding” crisis. Not true. There is a crisis, but it is a crisis of highway engineering malpractice. The Federal Highway Administration (FHwA) found, after a comprehensive nation-wide study, that 90% of the time, posted speed limits are 8 to 16 mph below the safe speeds that the super-majority of drivers travel routinely, every day. De facto, this makes almost every driver a “speeder” liable for a $200+points ticket.

“Everyone Speeds!” is urban legend. Citizens complain to their local officials about “all those speeders” when in fact, what they don’t like is the high volume of traffic in their neighborhood. They can’t very well complain about that because the roads are public, so they say everyone is “speeding” to get the local officials to “do something” about a non-problem. The officials get tired of all the complaints from uninformed and misinformed citizens, so the officials respond by lowering posted speed limits and stepping up enforcement. When that doesn’t work they double down and press for RADAR.

Local officials choose the speed limits to post based on feelings and good intentions instead of on engineering data. The proper way to set limits is to conduct a speed study and post limits at the 85th Percentile Speed of free flowing traffic. It’s the safest speed with the most compliance, and promotes smooth traffic flow and reduces accidents (www.metrocount.com/sites/default/files/2023-05/85thPercentile.pdf).

Pennsylvania Title 75 calls for speed limits to be posted at 85th Percentile Speeds, as does the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD). The proper action to be taken by the Legislature is to mandate and enforce that limits be posted at 85th Percentile Speeds, after a traffic study has been conducted.

The “safety” lobby constantly blares “Everyone Speeds!” It’s not true.

Speed is a cause of accidents 5% of the time, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) study, published at https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/811059.

The Florida Department of Transportation puts it at 2%. Data from NHTSA’s own Fatality Analysis Reporting System (www.nhtsa.gov/research-data/fatality-analysis-reporting-system-fars) have demonstrated that only about 2% of traffic fatalities are caused by drivers exceeding the speed limit. Speed as a cause of accidents when traffic is free flowing is a rare event, yet this is when the majority of citations are written. Speed traps are staged where it is safe to drive faster, making it easy to write tickets.

Pennsylvania roads have never been safer, and all without RADAR (www.pa.gov/agencies/penndot/news-and-media/newsroom/statewide/2025/2024-traffic-fatalities-in-pennsylvania-second-lowest-on-record).

What most drivers know about highway safety comes from urban legend rather than highway engineering data. Most traffic problems are not simple and do not have simple solutions. Requests for lower speed limits and enhanced traffic enforcement are sometimes made with the admirable motive to “quick-fix” a particular problem. However, rarely does a single traffic control tool like a RADAR gun solve all the traffic problems in a community.

Arbitrarily lowering speed limits and imposing massive enforcement to try to get people to comply has been the approach since automobiles were invented. It doesn’t work, and it never will, but some keep trying to double down in the hope that there will be some magical breakthrough. The only thing that works is using highway engineering to change the nature of the roadway to make it self-enforcing at the 85th Percentile Speed (and then dealing with the true outliers).

The primary objective of the enforcement of traffic laws must be to ensure the safe usage of highways and not to generate revenue. That starts with posting limits at the safest speed, which is the 85th Percentile Speed of free-flowing traffic. When that is done, the falsely ginned-up “speeding crisis” goes away, freeing police departments to go after the truly dangerous drivers, and not to levy unfair taxes on reasonable and prudent drivers doing nothing unsafe and harming no one.

RADAR cheerleaders can use all the flowery language they want, saying that RADAR isn’t for the money and we will be protected from abuse, but it is well established in Pennsylvania that RADAR legislation is for the express purpose to keep a stream of safe driver’s cash flowing into government. Urban legend, emotion and intention seem to have become the principal determinants of government policy, rather than years of data produced by engineers and organizations who have no financial interest in the conclusions.

Despite years of technological innovations, RADAR still suffers from the same reliability and performance issues that have made it unacceptable as evidence in a court of law. RADAR guns are notoriously inaccurate, for instance, clocking trees at 90 MPH, and being unable to distinguish between cars. RADAR cannot meet the requirements of the Daubert test, the set of standards trial judges use to determine whether or not expert testimony is based on valid scientific reasoning and methodology:

The reality of police RADAR is that it fails when subjected to the Daubert test. In this regard, police RADAR operation should be repeatable — this research demonstrates that it is not a repeatable technique and is, in fact, subject to operator interpretation when multiple targets are present.

RADAR evidence is inadmissible in court. This is not news to the attorneys in the Legislature.

Arbitrary, unrealistic speed zones cannot be expected to reduce accidents and may, in fact, adversely affect traffic safety by confusing drivers and increasing speed differentials. Arbitrary, unrealistic speed zones do provide high profits for RADAR guns.

Hunting down drivers with RADAR guns will not improve highway safety, and the unfair and unnecessary enforcement of too-low limits will foster contempt for law enforcement. Money is the one and only reason for arming municipal police with RADAR guns. Thank you.

PS:

As for slowing traffic, slower does not always mean safer. Speed limits are frequently set by bureaucrats and politicians basing them on feelings and good intentions, rather than on highway engineering studies.

From Federal Highway Administration Report No./RD-85/096 Technical Summary, “Synthesis of Speed Zoning Practice,” found at www.ibiblio.org/rdu/sl-synth.html:

“Based on the best available evidence, the speed limit should be set at the speed driven by 85 to 90 percent of the free-moving vehicles rounded up to next 5 mph increment. This method results in speed limits that are not only acceptable to a majority of the motorists, but also fall within the speed range where accident risk is lowest.”

“No other factors need to be considered since they are reflected in the driver’s speed choice,” the summary continues.

In engineering terms, the 85th Percentile Speed is the gold standard of the scientific community. It holds that the primary consideration for traffic control is represented by the actual measured, safe-for-conditions speed of the public, which rationally regards its own safety as paramount. Regardless of desktop, bureaucratic calculations or opinions to the contrary, except for the suicidal-for whom there can be no limits-drivers always seek to avoid collisions and bodily injury. Accordingly, their driving speeds trump governmental one-size-fits-all posted limits. It is increasingly difficult to accept the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s (NHTSA) assertion that “speed limits are put in place to protect all road users.”

The 85th Percentile Speed is regarded as the safest speed on the crash involvement risk chart. The number on a speed limit sign is not a per se safety threshold; at best, it is guidance or a recommendation. At worst, it is fraud perpetrated by revenue-starved local governments.