'Camo cops' target highway speeders

The goal of the operation is to reduce speeding and prevent accidents.
PITTSBURGH (AP) -- State police are taking to the woods, dressed in camouflage and armed.
Nothing strange there, considering the state's strong hunting tradition, right? But the weapons are radar guns, the quarry is speeders and the season never closes.
Police at the Rockview Barracks near State College began using so-called "camo cops" patrols after a 44-vehicle crash on Interstate 80 that killed six people in January.
"As a result, there were many, many letters and questions and fingerpointing: What are you doing? What are you not doing enough of?" said Lt. Jeffrey Watson, station commander.
Had a goal
Watson and Sgt. David Holmes wanted to reduce speeding and accidents and came up with the idea. Holmes has used the tactic for more than a dozen years.
"People have discovered that I have means of getting to the target," Holmes said. He recalled first using camouflage in Cameron County, back in 1989, and word soon spread.
"By the end of the second day, the people were stopping at the stop sign and looking [into the woods] to wave," he said.
Rockview primarily targets speeding tractor-trailers. Truckers quickly catch on to traditional methods, such as placing a patrol car in a median or tucked behind an overpass, and then use CBs to alert others to police presence, Watson said.
The tactic is effective, Watson said, if not appreciated by those drivers ticketed.
"Oh, the truckers, they don't think it's fair. But I don't think we've lost one yet," Watson said.
The tactic is catching on with state police in other counties.
In one five-hour blitz in Indiana County the week of May 23, troopers issued 25 citations to motorists zooming along at least 15 miles faster than the posted 55 mph limit -- including one leadfoot cited for going 90 mph.
"It's going to continue throughout the summer months," said Shawn Houck, a spokesman with the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation, which partnered with the barracks.
Other undercover cops
That police are going undercover to catch speeders shouldn't come as a surprise, Watson said. After all, they go undercover for other investigations, and variations on camouflage have been used before, such as when troopers pose as construction workers.
Jeff Kitsko, 27, of Latrobe, a Web designer who maintains a site about Pennsylvania roads, doesn't like the idea, however.
"From the safety aspect of it, if I see somebody in the woods aiming something, I'm going to want to call the cops," he said. "Especially someone dressed in camo."
Eric Skrum, the communications director for the National Motorists Association, a Wisconsin-based drivers organization that supports higher speed limits and opposes speed traps and revenue-generating traffic enforcement measures, said studies show police are effective when they're visible.
"This is a revenue maker. This is not about safety in the least," Skrum said. State police say that's not the case.
Skrum nonetheless believes the camo cops will have only a short-term effect.
"They'll slow down for a day or so, then -- out of sight, out of mind," Skrum said.
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