Don't look, but that PennDOT worker has a radar gun
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Sitting behind the wheel of an innocent-looking PennDOT truck, state police Cpl. Kevin Brown lifted his radar gun and pointed it at the traffic humming by on Interstate 79.
It took only a few seconds for a "75" to show up on the gun's digital readout.
"White pickup truck ... 75 miles an hour," Cpl. Brown radioed ahead to troopers in marked cruisers waiting to collar the lead-footed driver.
The truck driver was the first of a series of victims of Operation Yellow Jacket, an enforcement method that police and the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation are promising will be repeated through summer and fall.
In it, a police officer dresses in the Day-Glo garb of a PennDOT worker and sits in a PennDOT truck with a radar gun.
For Cpl. Brown on Friday, it was like shooting fish in a barrel as car after truck after car roared by well over the posted 55 mph limit on southbound I-79 just before the Parkway North split.
Victim No. 2 was a silver Toyota Camry, clocked at 72 mph about a minute later, followed by a black Ford Explorer SUV doing 71.
The six troopers who took part in the enforcement issued 45 speeding citations and two citations for other violations. They also gave out 52 warnings.
One emphasis of Operation Yellow Jacket will be on work zone speeding. According to PennDOT, there were 1,884 crashes in construction zones last year, with 22 people killed. In District 11, made up of Allegheny, Beaver and Lawrence counties, there were 330 crashes and five fatalities.
Steve Cowan, PennDOT safety press officer, held a news conference at the I-79 work zone in Marshall before police set up shop a bit farther south. He said driving 56 mph through the 45-mph construction area saves a driver all of 171/2 seconds.
"That 171/2 seconds hardly seems worth a 15-day license suspension and two points," the penalties for going 11 mph over the limit in a work zone, Mr. Cowan said. There's also a hefty double fine.
PennDOT has placed signs that flash drivers' speeds in the work zone. Just before Mr. Cowan spoke, numerous drivers topped 60 mph and one hit 70 mph.
"The speed going through this work zone is crazy. We're trying to slow them down and they're going over the [normal] posted speed limit," said Jim Foringer, PennDOT assistant district executive for construction.
PennDOT has more than 100 active construction projects this season, he said. "Highway work zones are very dangerous places to work. These workers perform very difficult tasks with cars and trucks passing within inches of them."
State police Trooper Robin Mungo noted that when a speed limit is reduced in a construction zone, the lower limit must be observed at all times, not just when the zone is active.
"It's designed that way for your safety and everyone else's," she said.
First Published May 28, 2011 12:00 am
