Delco Police Chiefs Pressing Their Case For Radar Speed Enforcement

By Brad Segall

DREXEL HILL, Pa. (CBS) — A group of police chiefs from Delaware County gathered this morning in Drexel Hill to again push the state legislature to pass legislation that would allow local police departments to use radar to enforce speed limits.

Upper Darby police superintendent Michael Chitwood says he’s been fighting this battle for at least a decade. Each session, he says, a bill comes up, and each session it never makes it out.

State law limits the use of radar for speed enforcement to state police, but Chitwood says expansion of that law will keep the roads in the communities safer.

“Here you’ve got West Chester Pike, you’ve got Providence Road, you’ve got Township Line, and that’s just my community,” he said.  “I mean, there’s thousands of miles of roadway in this state.”

Chitwood says Upper Darby residents tell him it’s a top priority for them when he goes out into the community.
He says they’re worried about speeding.

“When you look at the numbers of people who die and who are maimed on our highways as a result of careless driving, speeding in particular, it’s unconscionable that the state government does not support local municipalities,” Chitwood tells KYW Newsradio.

Federal statistics from 2012 show that Pennsylvania had the third-highest number of speeding fatalities in the country, with nearly half those deaths on roads posted at 50mph or less.