Traffic: The Last Speed Trap?

Not since Bonnieville, Ky., shaped up in 1963 had the American Automobile Association pinned its “speed trap” label on a single U.S. town. So last June, tourist-conscious Floridians were understandably irked when the A.A.A. informed its 10 million members that the tiny town of Coleman (pop. 921), north of Tampa, had suddenly become the nation’s biggest speed trap—in fact the only one.

The A.A.A. had the goods on Coleman’s one-man police force. Chief Ernest H. Barry, 64, had taken to lurking behind a billboard and pouncing on every unwitting out-of-towner who exceeded 15 m.p.h. In five months, Barry arrested 369 motorists, none of them Coleman citizens. Only half of each $15 take wound up in the town treasury; the other $7.50 was split among Mayor J. F. Crawford as the town judge ($2), the town clerk (500) and Chief Barry ($5).

Florida’s Governor Haydon Burns wrote a prodding letter to Mayor Crawford, arguing that Coleman should forthwith treat tourists as “most wel come guests.” After all, explained Burns with pragmatic hospitality, tourists swell Florida’s economy by $4 billion a year and chip in 17% of its total tax take. The mayor has just fired the police chief.

The A.A.A. expects few more U.S. speed traps; the growing interstate highway system is bypassing those little towns that love to nab strangers. But the American Bar Association warns of another kind of traffic trap—”fee courts,” which pay local magistrates out of fines they assess, and thus encourage them to nail every available errant. Although the Supreme Court has condemned it, the fee system still thrives wherever local governments are too poor to pay judges a regular salary. That includes traffic courts in hundreds of counties in 25 states.