Police hope cardboard cop slows down speeders

In Neenah, a fake officer Stuart Zuehls stands outside his squad car pointing a radar gun at oncoming traffic. The display will be stationed in high-traffic areas of the city as part of a new speed-reduction effort launched by the Neenah Police Department.

Officers got the idea from Tennessee, and said a trial period proved highly effective during its debut in a school zone.

“Many people slammed on the brakes thinking it was a real cop,” said officer Pam Martin, the city’s crime prevention coordinator. “It’s all about making people look down at their speedometer and slow down.”

Police Chief Ray Appel said speeding is as big a problem here as it is everywhere in the nation. Issuing tickets alone has not corrected the behavior, he said, so the new effort will rely on education, heightened visibility of law enforcement and the saturation of officers issuing tickets in problem areas.

Another way officers hope to combat speeding is with the help of volunteer citizens. When Neenah police receive complaints of speeding in a certain area, they plan to ask volunteers to position themselves nearby and record the speed of motorists using a hand-held radar gun, Martin said. The department hopes the information will help it devise a plan for problem areas.

Police plan to use the Zuehls cutout in high-traffic areas, stationing it for two days and then having an officer use a radar gun for a day.

During the debut effort in the school zone, police wrote 23 tickets and warnings in 3-1’2 hours. Motorists driving 5 mph over the speed limit were warned, and those going 10 mph over the limit were ticketed.

“We used every squad that we had,” Martin said. “At one point they were all (making traffic stops), and we still had speeders going by. We just had no one to stop them. I couldn’t believe it.”

The purpose of the crackdown isn’t to write tickets, she emphasized.

“The whole point of this is to make people aware of their speed,” she said. “Speeding has become so accepted. We are trying to change behavior.”

Alderman Todd Stevenson said the early response from residents is encouraging.

“We’ve heard consistently that speeding is running rampant,” Stevenson said. “It gives the public the feeling that we are attempting to correct what they perceive as a problem.”