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WPCNR Police Gazette. By John F. Bailey. May 7, 2003 UPDATED WITH PICTURES, 4 P.M. E.D.T.: The White Plains Department of Public Safety Operation Safe Streets which began April 14 has resulted in police handing out summons for 1,200 moving violations, 600 of them for speeding, and approximately 100 for illegal cell phone use, according to Captain Dennis O’Keefe, the balance of “vios” were for not wearing seatbelts, expired inspections, too dark window tints, and other moving violations.
CAN YOU SPOT THE POLICE CAR? An Operation Safe Streets detail was enforcing the speed limit on North Broadway early Friday afternoon. If you were speeding, the team would have had your speed clocked, and if you were exceeding the 30 MPH Speed Limit, a friendly “Summons Distribution Team” was waiting on Otis Avenue to give you a summons. The operation is similar to operations being conducted daily in the city to emphasize safe driving.
Photo by WPCNR News
WPCNR observed a speed enforcement operation conducted last Friday afternoon on North Broadway, just above the Cross Westchester Expressway. Officer John Lick was doing the spotting with Lieutenant Bill Bertram as his in-car supervisor (a standard operating practice in these speed enforcement deployments).
COMMAND CAR ON BROADWAY: Officer John Lick and Lieutenant William Bertram recorded 25 speeding violations in one hour from 1:11 PM to 2:11 PM from their post on the southband lane of North Broadway. Motorists stopped averaged 49 miles an hour, and three were clocked at 57, 61 and 71 miles an hour. Speeding is a way of life in White Plains, judging from one hour’s observation of a Operation Safe Streets Speed team in action.
Photo by WPCNR News
No chases. No Intimidation. Just the Summons, Ma’am.
The speeding enforcement strategy observed by WPCNR last Friday set up with the “Low Profiler” a police car with police markings on its side, but no “give-away” light apparatus on its roof spotting speeders and radioing back to the Summons Distribution Team about a block behind the Low Profiler.
STAGING THE OPERATION: Captain Dennis O’Keefe, Director of the Traffic Division, sets up the deployment of “The Low Profile” Police Vehicle Friday. The Low Profiler is parked at a vantage point with up to 5 officers stationed farther down the street out of sight to step out into traffic, wave the offender to the side of the road, and ticket the identified speeding cars. Note the absence of rooftop lights, but clearly visible Police markings on the side of the vehicle.
Photo by WPCNR News
Lieutenant Bertram noted to WPCNR that speeders identified in these typical operations will not be chased by a police car (“No chase, no pursuit.”). Officers will walk carefully out into the street and wave the already slowing vehicles to the side.
OFFICERS WAVING IDENTIFIED SPEEDING CARS TO THE CURB AT OTIS AVE AND BROADWAY: By the time the White Plains “Mario and Maria Andrettis” hit the brakes, it is too late, they’ve already been clocked before they see the police car and the small posse of officers awaiting their arrival.
Photo by WPCNR News
Speed Control is Hard to Preach. Easy to Ticket. Not Enough Officers to Ticket All Violators
In the operation I observed, officers waved identified speeding cars over at Otis Avenue, in clusters of 4-5 cars at a time– as easy as scooping salmon out of the Columbia River at spawning season. Lieutenant Bertram noted police cannot pull over every violator because they can only write a ticket at a time. Officer Lick’s duty as “Speed Traffic Controller” included checking with his 5 Summons-Writers to complete their “paperwork” down on Otis and get back “up” again after 5 speeders had been pulled over.
SUPERVISING OFFICER ACCOMPANIES THE SPOTTER ON EVERY SAFE STREETS OPERATION: Lieutenant William Bertram said, depending on the violator flow, (and it is a flow, ladies and gentlemen), they can generally ticket “5 out of every 7, or 7 of every 10” speeders with a 5-officer ticketing detail. “If we had more men,” Bertram said, “We’d get them all.”
Photo by WPCNR News
WPCNR noted that the police wrote 25 tickets in one hour with about a minute per ticket to write up. At that pace, the police might have been able to write 50 tickets in the hour with 10 officers instead of 5. The point is here, that there are a lot of speeders in White Plains.
Car Watchers Wanted. Report Chronic Speeding Problems to 422-6227.
Captain Dennis O’Keefe, who briefed me on the operation, said one of the criteria for setting up a speed enforcement operation is police go where the complaints are. He said the police had received reports from residents on Holland Avenue about speeding down the hill of North Broadway to the Holland Avenue light and beyond. That’s where the Speed Enforcement Detail began action last Friday afternoon.
I WANT YOU TO REPORT SPEEDING: The WPPD’s Captain Dennis O’Keefe demonstrating one of the “freeway flyer handouts” every motorist stopped is given. “We’re rotating two teams from neighborhood to neighborhood, each day,” Captain O’Keefe told WPCNR, “and not just thoroughfares. We’re looking at side streets, too, and we return on a rotating basis.”
Photo by WPCNR
Each motorist stopped by police, whether they are issued a summons or not, receives a 3” x 7” handout, printed in both English and Spanish explaining “the main focus” of the Operation Safe Streets program, and “increase voluntary compliance in the following areas: Observe Local Speed Limits. Never Drink and Drive. Always Wear Your Seatbelt. Only Use Hands-Free Cell Phone Equipment.”
The “Freeway Flyers” are also being distributed through the school system to young drivers.
Residents concerned about speeding in their neighborhoods which they feel merit review by the speed enforcement teams, should contact Captain O’Keefe at 422-6227. The police will survey the area promptly, and based on what they find, schedule it for stepped-up enforcement. Just such a series of tips from Holland Avenue residents prompted Friday’s operation. The Traffic Commission can also be contacted with speeding and excessive moving violation complaints at 422-1315.
Captain O’Keefe said the WPPD had 21 vehicles it used in various methods to implement Operation Safe Streets: 5 motorcyles, 10 vehicles, including 2 unmarked cars and 8 marked police cars, 6 bicycles, and an additional 2 officers on horseback who are being used for speed enforcement for the first time.
No Speeder Shortage
The enforcement operation I watched in action began at 1:10 PM with the police “Low Profiler” parked in the southbound lane on the gentle upslope of North Broadway opposite the Holland Avenue “downhill” rise. Officers Lick and Bertram fired up their radar, training it on oncoming Northbound traffic on North Broadway where the posted speed limit is 30 Miles per Hour at 1:10 PM.
It did not take long for the first “salmon.”.
Like salmon on a run to spawn, our first “speedo” is hooked visually by Officer Lick at 1:11 going 49 miles per hour, which he confirms by checking his radar readout beside him.
FORWARD OBSERVER: Officer John Lick in contact with the “Summons Distribution Team” behind him Friday afternoon. He jots the time, description and speed of each car down on the pad in front of him. The radar transmitter can be seen slightly above the steering wheel. The unit can pick up speeders to the rear of the vehicle, and the front.
Photo by WPCNR News
Lieutenant Bertram said that Officer Lick spots and “I.D.’s” the cars with his naked eye from his training and experience with what different speeds look like, confirming it on the radar readout.
After radioing the make and color of the speeding car to the summons-issuing team back at Otis Avenue, without taking his eye off oncoming traffic, he has another “cruiser” at 1:14 PM doing 46 miles per hour. Then at 1:14, a taxi doing 46, and simultaneously, a sedan doing 47.
“There’s Nobody Left to Write.”
Looking back, I saw White Plains Police officers in their new stylish “crunch hats” stepping out to wave the offenders over to the curb of North Broadway. Officer Lick on his 2-way, waited about 3 to 4 minutes while the first four tickets were written. To speed the process, officers bring pre-typed tickets with them, leaving only the drivers identification and infractions to be written in by the “Summons Distribution Team.”
AN EXPENSIVE AND HUMBLING INVITATION: The faster the ticket is written by the “Summons Distribution Team,” (WPCNR’s violater-friendly nomenclature, not the police department’s), the faster more speeders can be caught. I noticed, each time Officer Lick had locked onto four speeders, that some speeders, (one black SUV doing 67 miles an hour), were not be pulled over because the ticket detail was busy writing the previous tickets
Lick sighed, “There’s nobody left to write.”
Photo by WPCNR News
They See You Before You See Them. Your every move is tracked on video.
The “Low Profiler” the officers were sitting in to “make” the speeders, is described by Captain O’Keefe as “low profile, high visibility.” It cannot be identified instantly from the distance radar is effective as a police car because there are no “chase lights” on the roof. It’s dark roof, particularly at night makes it virtually undetectable and not conspicuous by day, either. Until they drive within 50 feet of it, a driver cannot “make” the friendly yellow seal of White Plains on its white side doors. However, it definitely identifies the vehicle as a police car.
Observing the “Low Profiler,” from the Holland Avenue intersection, it was parked alone on the side facing the northbound traffic. I knew it was a police car, but when you’re careening down the hill at 50, as a lot of motorists were, you are not going to slowdown fast enough to avoid being “locked on.” Officer Lick at the radar controls already has any speeder spotted before they know his car is a police car.
X-Ray Radar.
The radar equipment is very helpful in terms of giving Officer Lick a sense of what’s coming from a good quarter mile away. It sees “through trees.” it can alert Officer Lick to to watch for cars he cannot quite see. One speeder was driving double the speed limit and Lick had not spotted it, until the vehicle came out of the tree copse near McKinley Avenue. The radar had “cued” Officer Lick for a clean visual spot.
The Action Does Not Let Up
The sheer volume of the speeders is eye-opening. At 1:24, a white SUV was clocked at 57, at 1:29, a sedan at 51; at 1:34 an SUV at 47. In less than 30 minutes, 10 speeders had been ticketed. At 2:08 PM, one speeder had accelerated from a stop at the red light at Holland to 48 miles an hour within just 100 feet from the light.
Inattention a Factor.
I asked Lick why people speed. His theory: “Drivers are not paying attention to what they’re doing. They should be more aware of what they are doing and where they are going.”
It should be noted that just because you are not pulled over for speeding, doesn’t mean that they missed you, they just did not have enough officers available to write you a summons. Because they got you.
The Cost.
Speeding Tickets are expensive. For first-time speeders caught Friday afternoon doing 20 miles over the limit (the average), they face a fine of $125 plus a $30 surcharge. If you were more than 26 to 30 miles over the limit (our speeders going over 60, of which there were several), you face a fine of $175 plus $30 surchrage. The fines are set by New York State Department of Transportation.
HANDY PER MILE PRICE LIST: Each summons issued comes in this convenient white return envelope identifying the fine for your infraction. Some examples: Handheld Mobile Telephone Use will cost you $105; Seat Belt Violations, $80; Disobeying a Traffic Control Device, $105.
Photo by WPCNR News
The Excuse of the Day.
Officer Lick shared with Lieutenant Bertram, the Excuse of the Day, May 2, 2003:
“I was trying to blow off the yellow tree blossoms off my windshield.”
