For 22 years I’ve lived in Virginia Beach and last night I got my first speeding ticket. The flashing lights indicated I missed the 50 to 45 mph speed reduction on the new Princess Anne road, driving East to the courthouse. This newly finished section of road is state of the art and I was one of four tickets being written by four separate cruisers with a roving supervisor keeping tabs on the situation. Of course this was a construction zone... with no construction equipment, personal or cones.
The once dangerous two lane road, with the occasional released prisoner walking on the nonexistent shoulder, has been replaced with a state of the art divided four lane thoroughfare with a seperate bike path that puts most highways to shame. However, the speed was reduced from 55 to 45 mph for the construction and I'm guessing it will remain this way until VDOT turns the road over to the city. In the mean time it's pretty clear this stretch of road will continue to generated hundreds of tickets until outrage mounts.
Note: I later determined that the VA Beach Police Department was using this stretch of road to train new police officers. WTF
Red light and face recognition cameras, new roads that double as police ticketing training grounds and not being able to have a pager at a high school football game (told you I’ve lived here a long time) all add up to a slow erosion of our freedom. It’s time that we roll back the clock and remove the red light and face recognition cameras. It’s time city council reviews these and other programs in light of what’s going on in our country and make changes to enhance individual freedom. For starters, it would make sense to reevaluate using Princess Anne as a ticketing training ground and stop writing meaningless tickets that only serve to inflame the public.
PS Red light cameras... Consider removing the right turn on red enforcement while keeping the dangerous blowing through the intersection ticket. It turns out that the red light cameras mostly generate right turn on tickets which are not a safety issue. Right Turn on Red Stats
