Police officials say there are no speed traps here
If you do a Google search on McMinnville, Tenn., you’ll get a little over 74,000 results, most of which are the usual business, real estate and hotel listings.
But as County Commissioner Bill Yancy recently discovered, McMinnville is also included in a rather unusual Web site called, aptly enough, ‘Speed Trap Exchange,’ which can be found at www.speedtrap.org. This site, sponsored by the National Motorists Association, purports to list speed traps in cities and towns around the nation.
McMinnville, Sparta, Tullahoma, Manchester and Woodbury all have areas listed on the site, which labels Nashville as the worst so-called speed trap in the state.
Local authorities say they are aware of the Web site, but McMinnville Police Major Bryan Denton says these sites are nothing new, and have always been around on the Internet.
‘I’ve actually been on it before, but I haven’t taken time to study it,’ Denton said. ‘Because there’s dozens of them out there just like that.’
Denton says the comments are mostly sour grapes from errant speeders who’ve been issued citations.
‘This comes from folks who get speeding tickets and are ticked off about them,’ Denton said, ‘and they go on there and post the area where they got the ticket. That’s the information I have on it. My advice to them is if it’s a problem, slow down.’
Denton says law enforcement officers are not fans of these kind of sites, and their very names are a misnomer, since law enforcement doesn’t deliberately set up so-called ‘speed traps,’ and instead simply works to enforce posted speed limits.
‘We set up all over town,’ Denton said. ‘There are areas that are more problem areas than others that we may concentrate on more, but they’re not speed traps. Whoever runs these Web sites has a rather radical point of view. The worst thing you can do is lend credibility to them. In our job, we just do what we need to do.’
In fact, officials in McMinnville have recently raised the speed limits in several areas, which should go a long way toward indicating local law enforcement is not being overly hard on speeders.
‘There’s rarely anybody in McMinnville who gets a speeding citation who wasn’t doing well over the posted speed limit,’ Denton said. ‘If there’s any way the officer can help them, they do. You wouldn’t believe the warnings we give out, both verbal and written. That’s all part of the process.’
‘I understand that nobody likes getting a speeding ticket,’ Denton continued. ‘It’s not a very pleasant experience and sometimes folks just need to vent, and that’s what these Web sites are about. It’s an outlet to vent, that’s what it amounts to.’
McMinnville Police Chief Charlie Sewell says he has some problems with these sites as well. He says that to him a speed trap is when an area has a speed limit of 50 mph and it suddenly drops to 20 mph with little warning and an officer is positioned right there.
‘Anyone can go on a Web site and say whatever they want to and call it a speed trap when it’s actually not,’ Sewell said. ‘And that’s not really fair.’
As a result, Sewell says he tends to be skeptical of the comments posted on these sites, since they are unsubstantiated. Some other interesting aspects of these Web sites, Sewell added, is that those who post rarely claim they were innocent, and other citizens who visit the sites and post comments actually chastise those who complain and advise them to just slow down.
‘If they disagree with the ticket they have the option to go to court,’ Sewell said. ‘And if they have a complaint about an officer, then they can come to me. But that’s not happening.’
Sewell also pointed out there have been no traffic fatalities in McMinnville city limits in the 16 months he has been in office.
‘Our officers are just doing their jobs,’ Sewell said. ‘We enforce the speed limits in an effort to prevent property damage and save lives.’
The Web site Speed Trap Exchange lists the following areas in Warren County:
‘ Vervilla Road near WCHS
‘ West Main Street near Old Shelbyville Road
‘ Nashville Highway near Newtown
‘ Bybee Branch Road near Buckingham Apartments
‘ Highway 55 near mile marker 217