Guest mk3vdubu8v Posted July 7, 2005 Report Share Posted July 7, 2005 ok so i was heading towards sawmill on 270 and there was a cop on the other side of the freeway leaning over trying to radar people..also there was a cop about 100 yards waiting for the signal. also watch out if you are on 270 and sawmill they like to sit on the freeway entrance and radar people that way also.. last but not least be careful if the freeway that you are on has no center cement median... they often tend to sit on the side of the road in the opposite direction that you are going so they blend into traffic and radar you that way...so if the car on the other side is not moving slow down... happy speeding Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cptn janks Posted July 9, 2005 Report Share Posted July 9, 2005 there was an article in the dispatch saying that between i think 161 and sawmill on 270 is the number one spot in columbus to get a ticket. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cptn janks Posted July 9, 2005 Report Share Posted July 9, 2005 I-270 SPEEDWAY Drivers rocket along northwest Outerbelt, where they're most likely to get a ticket Published: Sunday, July 3, 2005 NEWS 01A By John Futty THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH Trooper Jason Highsmith leaned on his cruiser, aimed his laser speed gun at oncoming traffic and began squeezing the trigger. Within minutes, it registered a vehicle going 86 mph. Highsmith stepped to the rear of his cruiser and pointed emphatically at the silver Mercedes-Benz SUV, motioning the driver to pull over. The 40-year-old New Jersey woman ended up with a $131 ticket for going more than 20 mph over the 65-mph speed limit on westbound I-270 near Sawmill Road. "I didn't think I was going any faster than anyone else on the road,'' she said. "Look at this traffic. Most people are not doing 65 on this road.'' She's right, Highsmith said. The laser showed most vehicles traveling anywhere from the upper 60s to upper 70s. The woman, traveling with her husband and two children to Indiana, had the misfortune of outgunning other drivers on a stretch of the northwest Outerbelt that gets plenty of attention from troopers. A Dispatch computer analysis of State Highway Patrol citations found that troopers wrote more speeding tickets on I-270 between Rt. 161 and Rt. 315 than anywhere else in Franklin County in 2004. Of the 8,961 speeding citations issued by the patrol in the county last year, 1,704 -- 19 percent -- of the offenders were nailed on that 6-mile stretch of highway. "It's almost like a racetrack,'' said Highsmith, 31, who has patrolled the Outerbelt between Dublin and Worthington since joining the patrol nearly eight years ago. Trooper Kelly Weakley patrolled I-71 in Morrow County before transferring five years ago to the Delaware post, which assists on the northwest Outerbelt. He immediately was struck by how much faster the traffic was moving. "The speeds here are just unbelievable,'' the 32-year-old trooper said while clocking traffic on I-270 near the Sawmill Road exit. The patrol isn't the only law-en-forcement agency that writes tickets on Franklin County highways. Sections of the county's state routes and interstates also are patrolled by the Columbus Division of Police, the Franklin County sheriff's office and some suburban police agencies, but most don't keep data on the locations where their citations are written. With the highway patrol data, several sections of highway stood out for speeding citations written by troopers in 2004: * 949 tickets in the 4-mile stretch of I-71 from the Pickaway-Franklin county line to the Lambert Road overpass. * 892 tickets in the 4-mile stretch of I-70 from the Alton & Darby Creek Road overpass to I-270. * 533 tickets in the 2-mile stretch of I-270 from Georgesville Road to W. Broad Street. * 510 tickets in the 2-mile stretch of I-71 from I-270 to just south of Polaris Parkway. No mile marker produced more speeding citations than No. 86 on I-70, just east of the Madison County line, with 526 tickets. David Johnson, of Lancaster, was ticketed there for going 79 mph in the eastbound lanes. "I know I was going a little over, but I don't think I was going 79,'' he said as he waited for the ticket to be written. "I was going with the flow of traffic. Everybody else noticed (the trooper) before I did and slowed down.'' Lt. Rick Zwayer, patrol spokesman, said mile marker 86 is a good spot for enforcement because there is a crossover in the I-70 median that provides a clear line of sight for operating the laser. Troopers also sit there as a deterrent -- to prevent westbound drivers from speeding up as they leave the congestion of Columbus and to slow down eastbound drivers as they travel from a rural to an urban setting. Enforcement areas typically are selected because they have a history of speeding and crash problems, yet offer a safe area for troopers to operate in plain sight and for drivers to pull over, Zwayer said. Such is the case with the northwest Outerbelt. It became a focus of stepped-up enforcement in late 2003 after a study by the Ohio Department of Transportation determined the average speed there was 78 mph. The corridor also had a high number of crashes -- more than 1,100 in the period from 2000 through 2002 -- many of which were blamed on speed. ODOT and the Ohio Department of Public Safety made the northwest Outerbelt one of four stretches in the Columbus area where federal highway funds are used to increase enforcement of traffic laws in a program called Ohio Safe Commute. ODOT credited the crackdown with reducing the average speed on the northwest Outerbelt to 73 mph by the end of 2004. Troopers who patrol the area say many eastbound drivers rocket through the zone because I-270 widens from three lanes to four at Rt. 161, creating a new passing lane that beckons lead-footed motorists frustrated by congestion on the highway. Troopers also think drivers assume the concrete wall running down the middle prevents enforcement. "A lot of people are under the misconception that because there is no crossover, officers won't be sitting there,'' Highsmith said. Instead, the wide shoulder along the wall is an attractive spot for troopers to park and stand with their lasers. "It's pretty safe and it's extremely visible,'' Highsmith said. He expects to be there for much of the July Fourth weekend. He'll write tickets, but he'll also let some drivers off with warnings. "It's not about writing tickets,'' he said. "It's about reducing crashes and reducing fatalities. The goal, plain and simple, is to slow people down.'' Dispatch news researcher Susan Stonick contributed to this story. jfutty@dispatch.com and wtf ever to that last line, its about saftey my ass. its about making money and everyone knows that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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