Why Bother?

What's the point in gathering speed data from passing vehicles on any street in downtown Hudson if HPD doesn't enforce the speed limit downtown?  

Since HPD has been using their speed data recording device for years all over downtown Hudson, has it brought about one change in how they approach the speeding problem we have, especially of late and especially on the State Street Speedway?  Why have I never once heard a police chief offer any information regarding the data that contraption has revealed about traffic speeds?  Does the Vehicle Classifier System show that we have a speeding problem or not?  How about suggesting ways to combat the speeding problem if the data collected shows we have a speeding problem?  What does HPD do with the speeding data?  Throw it in the trash?  Is everything just fine on our streets because no one is speeding, even on the State Street Speedway?

A few years ago during a council meeting, I asked then Police Chief Ed Moore why I never saw any police officers enforcing the speed limit downtown.  Ed claimed that the only streets in Hudson that officers can enforce the speed limit are along Harry Howard Avenue by the schools and Route 9G, because downtown streets are too narrow for the speed radar gun to be useful. He offered no alternative, as if there were none available anyway.

According to HPD traffic violation reports I have received for the first three months of this year, our police department issued exactly 7 speeding tickets during those 91 days.  None were issued in the first two months, while 7 were issued in March.  One of those speeding tickets was issued on Harry Howard and the other 6 were on 9G, the only other street in Hudson you'll find a HPD officer with a radar gun.  But 9G is not a street, and enforcing the speed limit there is not helping the situation where it matters most -- on our downtown streets!

Is this HPD's effort at speed enforcement
on State Street?

Whatever data is being gathered from that contraption that has been laying across the 500 block of State for the past few days, I guarantee that it won't do anything to slow traffic down anytime soon.  When it has collected enough speeding data on State, you'll see it being used on Warren or Union or somewhere else where speed enforcement is also nonexistent.  Or does HPD consider the Vehicle Classifier System some sort of downtown speed enforcement?