April Fool’s Day is rife with old jokes.
It’s a date brimming with fake pregnancy announcements, weird product ad campaigns and classics like switching sugar for salt.
Do the tricks catch people? Sometimes. For those that see them coming, however, April Fool’s pranks tend to prompt rolled eyes and heavy sighs. Really? This? Again?
In Harrisburg, the equivalent is a bill that is introduced regularly and yet never passes. The trick with them? They aren’t pinned down to just one day.
For example, Pennsylvania State Police have been using radar guns to enforce speed since 1961. Municipalities, on the other hand, aren’t allowed. Pennsylvania is the only state that doesn’t trust its local police with this one tool to keep streets safe.
Yet in almost every session, there is an attempt to push the plan out there. This year, that’s coming from state Rep. Jill Cooper, R-Murrysville, who is shopping for co-sponsors for a very conservative introduction to the use of radar at the local level. Her plan addresses ordinances, training, advertising and even the state’s long concern that radar would be used just to generate money from tickets.
Could it happen? Sure. Should it happen? There’s a good case for it. Will it happen? History doesn’t favor it.
State Rep. Ed Neilson, D-Philadelphia, wants to introduce a similar bill that would keep red light enforcement cameras legal in areas like the City of Brotherly Love, Bucks County and Montgomery County. The cameras are legal in Pittsburgh but are not yet in use. That could change as bids are being accepted for Steel City cameras until April.
Neilson’s bill would expand red light enforcement cameras to all Pennsylvania municipalities. Assuming that it gets support, it remains to be seen whether the state would have the same concerns about broad use of the cameras as it does about radar.
These ideas are similar in scope and alike in goal. They aim to make drivers and pedestrians safer. Do they involve fines and citations? Yes, because drivers are seldom motivated by stern admonitions and good advice. If that worked, we wouldn’t need the laws in the first place.
And so we look forward to having these bills introduced and co-sponsored. Let’s hope they go to committee and are debated vigorously and go to the floor for a vote that comes up in a timely fashion and delivers well-considered yeas and nays.
But if you see an announcement about them on April 1, be skeptical.