Hollister City Council members are hoping the purchase of new
radar units for the police department will help squelch the city’s
ongoing speeding problem, which law enforcement officials say is as
bad as ever.
Hollister – Hollister City Council members are hoping the purchase of new radar units for the police department will help squelch the city’s ongoing speeding problem, which law enforcement officials say is as bad as ever.
Council members gave Hollister Police Chief Jeff Miller the go-ahead last week to use more than $14,000 in state grant money to buy nine hand-held radar units that are used to track the speed of cars. The new units, along with the three the department already had, will enable each officer to have their own while on patrol, according to Miller.
“I think if you ask anybody, they’d say we have a (speeding) problem, we certainly agree with that,” Miller said. “San Felipe Road is a raceway.”
Being able to give each patrol officer a radar unit increases the likelihood that they’ll be able to use them to catch speeders, Miller said. The problem of short staffing within the department remains, however, and officers have to dedicate much of their time responding to service calls, he said.
Councilman Brad Pike said he wants to get the word out that all of Hollister’s police officers will soon be packing the radar devices.
“Hopefully the radar guns in the units will be a deterrent,” Pike said. “If everybody knows every police car has a radar gun with them, they might be more apt to obey the laws.”
Pike said constituents often call him complaining about people speeding and violating other traffic laws, such as failing to stop at stop signs.
Meridian Street and Memorial Drive are particularly bad, according to Pike.
Principal Bernice Smith of Marguerite Maze Middle School, which is located on Meridian Street, said that motorists speeding to and from work on the four-lane street create a hazard for children who walk and bike to school, as well as for parents when they drop off and pick up their kids.
“It’s a problem in the morning when we’re coming to school, and it’s a problem in the afternoon when we’re releasing,” she said. “We have a lot of walkers.”
While Smith said she understands that local police are stretched thin, she is eager to see the problem abated.
“We’re hoping something happens before an accident,” she said.
Using radar and writing more tickets is the only way to get people to take their foot off the gas and obey the city’s speed limits, Councilman Robert Scattini said. Motorists often drive too fast on San Felipe Road and Airline Highway, he added.
“We definitely need to crack down on speeding,” he said. “Using radar is a good way to curb it.”
The new radar units have been ordered and Miller said the department should receive them soon.
