Slowing down Bangor

The Bangor Police Department deserves credit for responding to citizen complaints against speeding. Its increased enforcement is likely to make the city and safer and more livable place this summer.

The department began last December adding speed patrols and increasing the number of warnings and summonses it issues. Chief Don Winslow says his department plans to be more responsive to neighborhoods that generate a high number of speeding complaints, but reports he has already seen the difference the patrols have made on Hammond Street. Even if limits in staffing mean the department cannot cover all streets, its presence in highly visible areas should have a broad effect, making speeders think twice before stepping on the gas.

Speed is a factor in nearly half of vehicle fatalities each year — it turns minor accidents into serious ones and serious accidents into deadly tragedies. More subtly, speeding vehicles ruin the quiet in neighborhoods, make parents fearful for their children’s safety and make life miserable for other drivers. It is no surprise that the city’s police department received hundreds of complaints last year about the problem.

The department, however, has been helped this year by a $20,000 grant from the state Bureau of Highway Safety that has been used to pay overtime for traffic enforcement and to help purchase a radar trailer, which will tell drivers how fast they are going. The grant, certainly, is much appreciated, but Chief Winslow makes an important observation: “We have the same number of officers we had 25 years ago,” he said recently, “but our calls for service have tripled.”

Adding one new officer every quarter century in Bangor may seem like an extravagance for some, but given the new and growing demands on the department – breaking up the city’s heroin trade comes to mind – the City Council should take the hint and propose hiring a new officer.

City residents will know shortly after the weather warms a bit whether the standard summer run of speeders has been affected by the increased patrolling. If it has, the department will deserve credit for making everyone’s life a little more pleasant, not to mention safer.