The Virginian-Pilot
©
The Cessna spent 4-1/2 hours in the air Dec. 6, manned by Virginia State Police and winging over Interstate 64 in Chesapeake on a hunt for dangerous drivers.
They issued 14 tickets that Saturday, and it turned out those would be the last. Troopers haven't taken to the sky to enforce the rules of the road since.
Those 14 tickets came at a cost of roughly $90 an hour.
Nine years after Virginia changed its law to allow State Police to catch speeders from the air, the program is effectively over.
State Police blame millions of dollars in budget cuts, which have also forced the closure of its Manassas airport and the sale of one of its planes, spokeswoman Deborah Cox said.
The program might be re-instated when times are better. But the lawmaker who sponsored the bill that made aerial patrols possible doesn't expect that to happen until 2011 or later.
"It's really a shame," said Del. Jim Shuler of Blacksburg. "It's an excellent additional tool to monitor traffic and keep it under control. I hate to see programs like this cut. But the fact of the matter is Virginia State Police have been asked to do more and more law enforcement duties over the last few years with less and less funding."
State Police tout air patrols as a stealthy way to crack down on aggressive and dangerously fast drivers. You can see more from up there, drivers watching for police don't think to look up and radar detectors don't give airplanes away.
In 2000, signs went up along interstates across the commonwealth alerting drivers: "Speed limit enforced by aircraft." Four Cessnas were equipped with devices that calculate speed based on distance traveled and the time it took to travel that distance. A pilot, along with a trooper or sergeant or both, flew over interstates with course sites - three solid white lines at which State Police pushed a button when a vehicle crossed it, Cox said.
If the driver was speeding, the trooper in the air radioed a trooper on the ground, who would pull the car over. By year's end, State Police had issued 671 tickets. In 2001, they wrote 2,145. Then the number dropped drastically the following year, to 686. It fell to 111 in 2004.
Cox said pilots flew depending on weather, budget, man power and State Police projects; they never intended to patrol from the air every day.
When State Police began Operation Air, Land and Speed in July 2006, tickets took a big jump. The project pulled extra troopers to certain areas to target speeders and aggressive and reckless drivers, Cox said. The project continued through all of 2007; nearly 700 tickets were issued that year.
Then came 2008, and a single mission - the one over Chesapeake that produced 14 tickets. Deaths on Virginia roads last year dropped to the lowest point in the more than four decades State Police has tracked them, in part because fewer people were driving.
But, Shuler noted, truck traffic remains plenty heavy on Interstates 81 and 95. Those are the same roadways that concerned him nine years ago.
Kristin Davis, (757) 222-5208, kristin.davis@pilotonline.com
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I imagine the..
next logical step in airborn traffic enforcement will involve drones. As they become more prevalent, and the expertise for operating them becomes more widespread, I wager drones will become part of the traffic law enforcement apparatus. It stands to reason..
To ALL participants..
'Meet and greet', or , as it is better known as, the latest 'Beer Summit', will be held this Thursday at 6PM at The Fossil Rock Inn, Ste 108, 1457 Mt Pleasant Rd, Chesapeake, VA 23322-3919
(757) 389-5301
If you can make it, fine. If you can't, fine as well. But always remember we're trying to get more and more particpants to come out for these. If anyone has a venue for future meets, by all means, share that with us.
state codes
found these.....
§ 46.2-823. Unlawful speed forfeits right-of-way.
The driver of any vehicle traveling at an unlawful speed shall forfeit any right-of-way which he might otherwise have under this article.
§ 46.2-842. Driver to give way to overtaking vehicle.
Except when overtaking and passing on the right is permitted, the driver of an overtaken vehicle shall give way to the right in favor of the overtaking vehicle on audible signal and shall not increase the speed of his vehicle until completely passed by the overtaking vehicle. Any over-width, or slow-moving vehicle as defined by § 46.2-1081 shall be removed from the roadway at the nearest suitable location when necessary to allow traffic to pass.
Amusing Comments
It’s amusing to read comments from people justifying their negligent, passive-aggressive behavior under the guise that they are the only ones obeying the law, when they themselves have no idea what the law actually says on the subject. The distortions of the law that must be made to accommodate such poor behavior are so ridiculous it’s amazing that these comments are actually coming from adult licensed drivers. These are the types of brain-dead imbeciles that, upon seeing a fast approaching car in the lane to the left of them, quickly get over into that lane to slow the driver down in some bizarre, dysfunctional, altruistic effort to inflict their morality and driving ethics on others. Get educated, PLEASE, for everyone’s benefit. Go to http://leg1.state.va.us/000/src.htm and familiarize yourselves with §46.2-841 and §46.2-804; you know, that little thingie called the law.
Really?
Did you perhaps mean § 46.2-842.1
Good Research
No, though §46.2-842.1 more specifically addresses some of the comments here. Well done. I purposely sited code sections specific to passing on the right, and the idea that slower vehicles should keep right. If you read §46.2-804.1 very closely, it makes no mention of the speed limit; only the “normal speed of traffic.” This is where the idea that faster traffic therefore uses the left lane comes from that some readers apparently have a hard time understanding. It’s encouraging to see other readers make an effort to learn what the law says so that we can offer our thoughts using a common frame of reference and hopefully learn something to help us improve our driving.
Slow drivers the real problem
Anyone knows that it's the slow drivers--especially the ones who drive under the speed limit in the expressway's left lane--that are the true culprits here and among the most dangerous of operators. Germany has known this for decades and enforces a strict code of driving etiquette on Autobahns: Slower traffic keep right or face stiff fines.
Why not employ new technology?
Use a fixed balloon with high-quality internet capable cameras. It can be remotely monitored and no people are endangered in the skys or on the ground. No noise, no engine emissions--just some lighter-than air gas. The balloon could even be used to sell advertising to reduce the cost to taxpayers. I hate speeders and dangerous drivers--I'd like the effort to continue.
I want to know where they rent their planes
Most local FBO's rent Cessna's at over $100 an hour(operating an owned airplane costs even more.) When you consider the combined wages of the pilot and sergeant have to be easily $50 per hour, they would have to be renting at less than half the going rate to cost only $94 an hour. And that doesn't count the cost of the supporting ground units. I'd guess the true cost of that type of enforcement at well over $200 an hour.
But even so, I'm glad to see the procedure go. In addition to being expensive, it was unsafe. I've watched them flying at no more than 800 ft altitude at minimum airspeed with half flaps, over residential areas. If I had done that, I'd have lost my license. Flying low and slow, on the verge of stalling, over urban areas for hours at a time was an accident waiting to happen.
It was a bad idea all along, for a number of reasons. Just because you CAN do something doesn't mean you should.
Depends on the pilots
I flew search and rescue with the Civil Air Patrol in Washington and Idaho. The mountains of the Cascades and Northern Rockies can have some of the most dangerous flying conditions, especially in winter. To check on things, we had to get real close, as low and slow as possible in some of the dangest situations. To my best recollection, in the twenty years I'm familiar with there wasnt a single accident with CAP planes from both Washington and Idaho wings flying such missions. Knowing this, I have to say it all depends on the pilots doing the flying. Out here, with all this flat terrain and fewer odd-ball air currents tossing you around, flying at 800 feet (that high was unheard of for us) with the flaps applied to get as slow as possible wouldn't be that difficult for a decent pilot.
Still, using planes to tap speeders and other highway traffic law breakers is a very expensive way to do it.