Tired of watching vehicles speed up and down his street, Richard Royer asked Akron police to drop off a machine that tracks and shows motorists how fast they are going.
While the speed limit on East Crosier Street is 25 mph, Royer insists that people are traveling anywhere from 40 to 60 mph.
So he was pleased that a Speed Maintenance Automated Radar Trailer (SMART) machine recently was sitting nearby his house keeping motorists honest.
“I admit that I’d done it when I was younger, but now going on 72, I watch my speed,” the retired steel and tire worker said while sitting on his porch. “One of these days, some kid might get killed.”
Two years after pledging to crack down on neighborhood speeding, Akron City Council members say that it remains the No. 1 complaint they receive from residents.
Last year, Akron invested $128,000 to buy the SMART machines and deploy them around the city, and spent additional money for overtime so police could run radar. The city also has handed out “Slow Down” signs for residents to put in their yards.
Into the beginning of June, police said they had made 173 traffic stops and issued 148 citations under the department’s neighborhood speeding enforcement program. They also had made 10 arrests, towed six vehicles and recovered a stolen vehicle.
The program was in jeopardy of being shut down, but the council intervened because of neighborhood concerns.
“The problem is never going to be solved but we have to somehow put a dent in it and educate people about slowing down,” Councilman Donnie Kammer said.
Public Safety Director Charles Brown appeared before the council recently and said he would find additional money to keep the effort going.
“We think this is going to make our citizens safer,” Brown said.
He added that it’s especially needed in the summer when children aren’t in school and are out in the neighborhoods more.
The SMART machines, which run on a car battery, usually sit on a street for a week or two monitoring speeds and times. Police then analyze the data collected.
“We’ve had some speeds as high as 100 mph,” said police Lt. Richard Decatur, who oversees the program.
Because the machines don’t have cameras, he hailed a guess that those egregious speeds were motorcycles.
After a machine is collected, police will run radar enforcement on the street.
“Sometimes, we need radar enforcement to issue citations to those individuals who want to continue ignoring the speed limit,” Kammer said.
He added that residents have been appreciative of the city’s efforts and believe it’s helping.
Count Royer, the East Crosier resident, among them.
He said there has been less speeding on his street since the SMART machine appeared.
The city also had pledged last year to start installing speed humps on residential streets as a tool to slow down traffic. But there hasn’t been a single speed bump installed.
“It’s not off the table but it’s a funding issue that we’re working through,” Deputy Service Director Chris Ludle said.
The city is looking at requiring residents to petition for a hump and then making them pay a special assessment for it.
Councilman Mike Freeman, who helped study the humps, said he planned to press the administration on the issue when council returns from its summer break in September.
He said he wants to see a plan developed on the assessments and the petition process opened to the public.
Rick Armon can be reached at 330-996-3569 or rarmon@thebeaconjournal.com. Follow him on Twitter at @armonrickABJ.