Pa. House panel favors radar speed enforcement for police

HARRISBURG — A bill allowing municipal police across Pennsylvania to use radar guns for speed enforcement details passed the state House Transportation Committee, 25-0, Tuesday in a strong early show of support.

Pennsylvania is the only state in the nation that limits the use of radar exclusively to its state police. That’s a sore spot for many municipal officials and police chiefs, who feel they are handicapped in monitoring speeding in residential zones and local roads.

But it also has been a treasured, 60-year-old safeguard for some motorists who worry those same municipal officers would take advantage of the new tool to balance their budgets.

Prime sponsor Rep. Greg Rothman, R-Camp Hill, argued Tuesday that because state and municipal police both share powers of arrest and can use guns, squad cars and handcuffs, it only makes sense that they be able to enforce speeding the same way, too. Some conditions are attached. First, in an attempt to defuse

the longstanding concern about policing for profit, the bill says no municipality could receive more than 10% of its annual municipal budget from the local share of speeding tickets fines. Any dollars received in excess of that cap would revert to the state’s Motor License Fund, which is used to fund road and bridge improvements and state police operations.

Mr. Rothman would also require any municipality wanting to use radar to adopt an ordinance authorizing its use in that community, and it would have to post warning signs on at least four roads entering into its jurisdiction that radar enforcement is used there.

The devices could not be used within 500 feet of any speed limit sign that denotes a reduction in a speed limit.

And finally, the bill carries through an existing requirement that for a speeding citation to be issued based on radar readings in areas with a speed limit that’s less than 55 miles per hour, the violation as recorded must be at least 10 miles over the speed limit for the given street or road.

Mr. Rothman said he thinks the measure strikes a fair balance between the desire of police chiefs and municipal officials to better promote and enforce traffic safety in their cities and towns and worries about abuse of power.

The issue has been considered in numerous past legislative sessions, but never passed.

This time, however, the bill has the support of the Pennsylvania State Troopers Association, the union representing members of the Pennsylvania State Police and typically a strong voice on public safety issues. That was secured through the addition of an amendment to Mr. Rothman’s bill that would permit state police troopers to use radar devices from moving patrol cars.

Municipal police officers would be limited to using radar from a stationary point.

While the bill got a unanimous vote in the committee, there is some continuing opposition from the National Motorists Association, a grassroots organization dedicated to the preservation of drivers’ rights.

In an alert posted to members of that organization, the NMA noted that by PennDOT’s own counts, traffic fatalities in Pennsylvania reached an all-time low in 2019, a development that occurred without “municipal police being able to use RADAR for predatory speed enforcement.”

To NMA member Thomas McCarey, that means “arming municipal police with radar guns at this time ... is evidence of an agenda to give financial aid to commercial radar interests; to give financial aid to municipal governments; and to give financial aid to the state.”

Mr. Rothman’s bill now goes to the full House for further consideration.

A similar measure passed the state Senate in 2019 on a 49-1 vote, but never received consideration in the House.