Home
Louisiana Speed Traps.com
Louisiana's Corrupt Traffic Enforcement Program
Try to level the playing field using the Speed Trap Early Warning System on your GPS Device

 Fact Sheet

 

Fact#1: "If you would just drive the speed limit and obey the law you won't get a ticket! FALSE: You can get a ticket for doing the speed limit, except traffic enforcement radars and the cop who stops, needs the money and will inflate your speed. Your argument will fall on deaf ears.
Fact#2: Everyone violates the law by speeding! (Exception: Elderly people). If you looked down at your speedometer and realized you were driving 55.5 mph, you were in violation of the law for that brief second. Washington La, routinely writes tickets for 2 miles over the speed limit. The posted speed limit is the LAW.
Fact#3: There is no law that allows you up to 5 miles per hour over the posted speed limit.
Fact#4: You can be ticketed if you speed up when you see a speed limit sign increasing the speed before you get to the sign. There is an imaginary line.
Fact#5: You can be ticketed if you have not slowed down by the time you reach the sign where the speed decreases.There is an imaginary line.
Fact#6: There is no "Due Process" in Louisiana. If you get a speeding ticket. You WILL pay! You CANNOT win in court!
Fact#7: Municipalities throughout Louisiana routinely change speed limits on State Highways at the approval of Louisiana Department of Transportation, despite the law establishing speed zones (RS32.63) that requires a traffic study be performed.
Fact#8 Traffic enforcement in Louisiana is not ALL about safety, despite comments to the contrary. It is about padding the local municipality budgets from unsuspecting motorists.
Fact#9 A study was performed in 2007 by the Louisiana Legislative Office in response to HCR 204. The study was extremely negative and evidence that abuses exist.
Fact#10 Many municipalities failed to cooperate with the study. Nothing was done about it!
Fact#11 Local Municipalities could not provide sufficient data to conduct an "in-depth" analyses.
Fact#12 Other states have laws controlling speed traps. According to the 2007, Louisiana does not!
Fact#13 The study found that, "municipal governments cannot set speed limits on State Highways". Despite this, the practice still continues.
Fact#14 Financial data for the study was not available. In other words, there is no accountability for the money collected on traffic fines.
Fact#15 Only 30 municipalities completed the survey for the study as requested by the supreme court and the Louisiana Legislative Auditors Office. 
Fact#16 39 municipalities failed to respond to the requests by the Legislative Auditor despite repeated attempts. Nothing was done to the municipalities for failure to comply.
Fact#17 Numerous large discrepancies were found in the number of tickets written as submitted from the survey compared to other sources.
Fact#18 Despite the large sums of money from the shake down on Louisiana motorists, municipalities used the excuse of outdated methods of data collection for their discrepancies. (ie manually logged or ticket in a box) 
Facts #19: The law prohibiting traffic or arrest quota (RS2401.1) does not protect motorists. It is to protect law enforcement! There is no provision that outlines the enforcement of this law. Nor does it cover overtime, which is an incentive as outlined in section C of this law.
Fact#20 Large discrepancies were found with data supplied to the Louisiana Supreme Court and to the Department of Public Safety.
Fact#21 Despite the requirement of RS32:393 local municipalities are not reporting traffic data to the Department of Public Safety accurately.
Fact#22 A law was drafted to amend and provide restrictions on the use of speedtraps in RS 32:63.2. It also provided for restrictions on Speed enforcement photo cameras. It failed.
Fact#23 Louisiana Revised Statute RS32:266 that was supposed to cause the forfeiture of revenue from municipalities over a certain percentage, ended up with only the funds for tickets under 10MPH. This money would be used by the state to install permanent radar. There is no provision or penalty that covers non compliance or enforcement.
Fact#24 If the municipalities were not complying with the 2007 study then they won't comply with the new RS32:266 Law. Motorists now will receive tickets for over 10mph even if it was really just one mile over. To add insult to injury, this only applies on interstate highways. The incentive is to further inflate the speeding tickets. What you will get is a few portable radar units set up along the roadways.
Fact#25 Municipalities go to the voters to pass a tax to support law enforcement. They play the "safety trump card" and they use fear to get their tax passed. They lean heavily on crime statistics like rape, murder and theft. Once passed, they hire more patrolman, more cars, newer cars and the latest in radar technology and traffic enforcement tools. We pass a tax to fight crime, but what we get instead is more speed traps that simply seperates the taxpayer from his money again.
Fact#26 The 55MPH Speed was passed into law in response to oil price hikes and oil disruptions for the sole purpose of energy conservation. It had nothing to do with safety. In fact, in the following months accidents increased which the government determined was an anomaly. Studies have shown that raising the speed limit does not increase fatalities. Studies also show they do. It just depends on which study you would like to believe. If your caught driving 65 in a 55 you should be ticketed based on "excessive fuel consumption", not based on safety reasons. 
Fact#27 Speed limit signs in Louisiana vary in size and distance from the highway and are sometimes placed in locations that are hard to see. For example, on a 55MPH road you may find a 45mph sign in a curve, a foot or 2 further than normal from the pavement, shaded by trees making them hard to notice in the day and invisible at night.
Fact#28 A motorist will not consistently see a "Speed Reduction Ahead" sign before a reduced speed MPH sign. In cases when you do there is seldom enough distance between the speed reduction sign and the lowered speed sign. In order to comply, you have to hit your breaks. You cannot coast and achieve the lower speed. This is dependent on vehicle type, wind and other variables.
Fact#29 Speed Trap location selection is not consistently based on traffic data or accident locations. It is normally based on the location with the best cover and concealment.
Fact#30 A portion of traffic fines goes to the States indigent defender fund. This money was used to pay defense attorneys to overturn a conviction of the death penalty on convicted sex offender Ricky Langley. He was on death row for 17 years for murdering a child in Louisiana.
Fact#31 Missing from the Legislative Auditors Report in 2007, was an audit of Speed Limit Signage, which can be a major contributor to speeding tickets.
You are challenged to begin watching for large signs when the speed limit is above 55mph and smaller signs when the speed limit is at or below 55mph.
Fact#32  Every US Citizen has the right to petition government for redress of grievances or to seek assistance of ones government without fear of punishment or reprisal.
Fact#33 The the new state law (Speed Trap Law)  requires fines for tickets up to 10MPH over the speed limit, to be turned over to the state and is suppose to discourage local municipalities for issuing tickets. It also encourages the Louisiana State Police for issuing the tickets below 10MPH since ALL money then goes to the state.
Fact#34 Fines and Forfeitures is a line item on the revenue side on each municipalities operating budget. The incentive exists to meet or exceed every line item on the budget. If one line item comes under budget by 30K, one of the best places to make it up is the fines & forfeitures line item. This creates an incentive for more speed traps and aggressive traffic enforcement for the sole purpose of cash flow.
Fact#35 Traffic enforcement is methodical and targets traffic on specific days. For example: State Police know when crew change is for off shore workers. They are out in droves on those days. Even on days when average traffic speed is low and in order to bring in their quota, they will force the issue. This is where you get inflated tickets or speeding tickets for 5 miles over the speed limit.
Fact#36 If we all slowed down to the exact speed limit, traffic fine revenue would likely not decline. This would create desperation in maintaining the same revenue. Tickets with inflated speed limits written would increase. There is no solution other than eliminating speed traps altogether.
Fact#37 After 36 Facts, you should be able to figure out that the traffic enforcement program is corrupt.! This includes the local municipalities and the state enforcement program. Nobody has the answer! Speed Traps have become a corrupt practice that must be eliminated or reduced.


Since elected officials like to play their Safety trump card, I too will do the same. This site is totally dedicated to Safety. That puts me on the same team as municipalities, the state and law enforcement! The Louisiana Speed Trap.com Early Warning System will help slow traffic down. I'm just going about it in a more non-traditional way.

On 1 positive note, the town of Washington owes several hundred thousand dollars for the fines it collected under the 10mph speed trap rule. 
Naturally they are fighting it. Big surprise. It's doubtful, despite the tough talk that anything will come from it.

The Speed Trap EWS system is NOT for Speeders.
It is for those people who abide by the traffic laws but get caught in the snares of the Louisiana Traffic Shake-Down!
It helps you pay attention. You become a more alert driver, looking for speed traps and watching for speed limit signage.

Home