Letter: Pennsylvania needs radar to make its roads safer

Editor:

“Zeroing in” (Reading Eagle, June 20) addressed speeding and efforts to make radar available to local police.

As long as this octogenarian can remember, a motorist did not have to be conscious of speeding in rural areas or small Pennsylvania towns because radar was unavailable or unlawful there. As a youthful driver, I knew where speed was enforced by radar as well as where police were hidden.

I take particular satisfaction with the report that municipal police in Pennsylvania are the closest they have ever been to gaining authority to use radar to enforce speeding limits.

Pennsylvania, the second state to ratify the U.S. Constitution, has since fallen behind other states concerning certain laws and mores. Resistance to change has almost become a hallmark of the Keystone State. I know this because I have lived in a number of our great nation’s states.

Because Pennsylvania is an important industrial state and has thus attracted many national and international corporations and a diverse, enlightened citizenry, change from the old way has become more probable.

Let us hope and perhaps pray that our state’s legislators will finally have the courage to accomplish what is long overdue.

Jim Chett
Jefferson Township

Source: Berkshire mont