By Cathy Ingalls
Albany Democrat-Herald | Posted: Wednesday, July 8, 2009 12:00 am
Ever wonder if those radar trailers serve any real purpose or do any real good?
Albany police Capt. Eric Carter said "we consider them a valuable tool to get people to reduce their speed and to change their driving behavior."
Officers on patrol often comment on the number of times they see drivers hit their brakes when they come upon one of the trailers, he said.
With only a few exceptions, the two trailers owned by the police department are on the job between 7 a.m. and 5 p.m. seven days a week.
"They are good tools for use throughout the community and seem to be well received by residents," Chief Ed Boyd said.
Community Service Officer Jim Dohr said the detectors are set up throughout the city, depending on where extra driver caution is needed.
When school is in session, trailers can be found in school zones, he said. They are parked on streets when neighbors say drivers' speeds are excessive, and they are placed where police find people driving too fast.
Anyone wishing to remind drivers of the speed limit in their neighborhood can make arrangements for a radar trailer by calling Sgt. Curtis Hyde at (541) 917-3215.
Only one of Albany's radar trailers is on duty right now. A 2001 model is in the shop getting one of its legs repaired.
Both radar units are battery-operated, and the batteries are changed every week and a half or so.
The newer trailer, which arrived in 2004 and has more sophisticated data collection components, records a driver's speed, the time and day the vehicle approached the trailer, and the direction the vehicle was traveling.
The high, low and average speeds for a day also are recorded, as well as the number of cars that were on the street that day.
The device cannot be used for ticket writing because, for one reason, there is no camera inside to photograph license plate numbers.
Drivers' speeds are calculated from three blocks away, Dohr said. If there are multiple lanes of traffic, the radar picks up the speed of the vehicle that is ahead of the others.
The department usually does not place the trailer next to multiple lanes of traffic. "It's just too confusing to the drivers as to which vehicle's speed is being shown on the screen," Dohr said.
"The radar in the trailers is basically a smaller version of the units used in patrol cars," he said.
The Corvallis Police Department has one radar trailer.