Daragh John Carter hates a speed trap near his home so much he began posting about it on Facebook before eventually escalating to standing near it and warning passing motorists it was coming.
His actions frustrated a Houston police officer enough that Carter was cited for jaywalking, with the traffic police noting he was the resident who posted about the speed trap on Facebook. Rather than pay the fine, Carter has opted to contest the tickets in court, where a trial is tentatively set for April 29, he said.
“I have read the sections of the Texas Transportation Code … and I do not believe I violated either one of them,” he said. “No different than if I was cited for speeding, but knew I was driving at or below the speed limit.”
What might at first glance seem like a sympathetic quixotic quest to anyone who’s ever gotten a municipal ticket is actually part of larger, more sweeping conversations in public safety on how to balance desire for safer streets with the cost-intensive speed traps that can be ripe for abuse and how the city might find savings as it stares down a $330 million municipal deficit while overtime spending in the police department spikes each year.
Carter said the citations were the culmination of a growing dispute in his neighborhood over a speed trap along TC Jester Boulevard.
Carter said he’s always objected to the trap because even if you’re watching your speed, it’s easy to break the posted 35mph speed limit along that stretch of road. The area in question is near the bottom of a hill, where a driver might eclipse the speed limit even if carefully monitoring their surroundings, Carter said.
“The reason HPD runs radar there is that it’s like shooting fish in a barrel,” he said.
Jodi Silva, a spokeswoman for the Houston Police Department, said the department set up the traffic enforcement in response to growing concern from nearby residents about dangerous driving. The officer’s job is to issue citations in areas that are of particular concern.
Soon after Carter became frustrated with the speed trap, he said he began posting in the neighborhood Facebook group warning people about it. Then he stood down the hill from the traffic patrol and telling passing motorists, he said.
But Carter’s decision soon drew the ire of one of the officers orchestrating the speed trap, Carter said. That officer, Matthew Davis, tracked down Carter and wrote out a citation for jaywalking after telling him he was interfering with a police investigation, Carter said. On the citation, Davis also mentioned that Carter had been the one posting on Facebook.
There’s more, so read the rest. I can think of plenty of places in Houston where I’d love to see a cop busting speeders – hell, Studewood between White Oak and 11th is often a racetrack. We can all think of road stretches where the speeding is egregious and dangerous, and as such my initial reaction to this was “what the hell is this guy complaining about”. But now I get it, and as you can see from the pictures there’s nothing but the road where that speed trap is, so there’s much less of a threat to pedestrians, children playing in yards, and so on, thus lessening the safety impact. And that citation doesn’t sound like jaywalking to me either, it sounds more like spite. So go ahead and fight it. There’s an April 29 court date. I’ll be interested to see how that goes.
Yeah, I’m always skeptical of cops saying that someone is “impeding their investigation” just by pointing out that they’re there (or recording an interaction). He’s not setting up electronic jamming of radar or physically blocking a laser. I am very much not a lawyer and obviously only know the context provided, but seems to me like first amendment rights – no threats to the police, no interference, just saying that a speed trap is ahead. Is the city going to sue Waze and Google for pointing out speed traps on their maps? And jaywalking? Seriously? If that’s all you can cite someone for, you’re really reaching.
I’ll bet he’s not even one of the Radar Task Force guys that get to drive a Camaro.