Lock Yourselves In, Folks

The Newhouse press is putting out the press releases for the Alabama Department of Public Safety again, this time reporting that this non-holiday weekend will be another “Take Back the Highways” weekend.

Chris Murphy, director of the Alabama Department of Public Safety, tells the corporate, chain press motorists can expect more frequent, unannounced state trooper highway blitzes this year, even on non-holiday weekends.

There will be at least one statewide blitz using 400 troopers, and “regional blitzes” using 50 troopers over four days.

“We are trying to get more creative,” Murphy said. “We are trying to not just write tickets. If we wanted to do that, we could target I-459 to give speeding tickets, which is like fishing in a barrel. We want strategic enforcement.”

Wooh! Strategic enforcement to take more money out of your pocket with a recession looming, and more money out of the state coffers from sales taxes on meals out at the state’s restaurants. But it seems Bill Canary at the Business Council of Alabama has no problem with that. Maybe business is better at the churches?

The department plans to put more unmarked patrol cars on highways, including 30 new Dodge Chargers, although the unmarked cars will have DPS emblems on the passenger doors and officers will be in uniform, the News reports in Alabama, the nation’s number one police state.

Murphy also plans to put more marked vehicles on the highways, and this year he plans to use DPS’ 18 motorcycles as part of the traffic blitzes, like the seven that sometimes run a speed trap on John Rogers Drive by the Birmingham Race Course and new Guiding Light Church.

Topping the list is a blitz jointly planned for Mobile and Baldwin counties, where 90 people were killed in highway crashes last year. Other counties targeted are Chilton County, with 24 people killed in crashes last year, Tuscaloosa with 31 and Cullman with 39.

But remember, if you have to get out of the house and on the highways, and a small town Barney Fife pulls you over on the Interstate, that is against the law. You can challenge the ticket in court – and win! Call a lawyer…

To read more of the press release, click here and weep…

Tags: Domestic Surveillance

This entry was posted on Friday, February 22nd, 2008 at 11:09 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.