Elder Beerman.
 
Gone.
 
Value City Department Store.
 
Gone.
 
Value City Furniture.
 
Gone.
 
Tuffy, Earl Brothers, Pennzoil.
 
Gone. Gone. Gone.
 
Drive Woodville Road in Northwood. Note the vacancies. Victims of the Big Recession? Yes, however, the city bears some responsibility because of its aggressive speed enforcement. According to a Press report (see front page), Northwood issues more speeding tickets than any other community in the Eastern Maumee Bay region. In 2009, 1,457 tickets, more than twice the number issued by its neighbor Oregon, home to nearly four times the population and Rte. 2, a state highway with 69 percent more traffic than Northwood’s Rte. 51. About 10.7 million vehicles drive Navarre east of Wheeling while 6.4 drive Woodville at Lemoyne.

The city also issued 529 more tickets than Woodville, a village with a reputation as a speed trap. In fact, one business flaunts the village’s reputation. The Speed Trap Diner has perched above it a 1950 DeSoto black and white police car. If the unusual display slows people down as they pass two elementary schools located on Route 20 then the police chief has said he’s all for it.
 
Northwood officials will say it too has an elementary school located on a state highway. They will say the same thing about speed enforcement as they do about the red light cameras. It’s about safety, not revenue.
 
Well, there is some truth to that. As the story points out, vehicle crashes dropped from 368 in 2003 to 215 in 2009. And, there’s no doubt that speed, particularly at busy intersections, contributes to serious car crashes.
 
On the other hand, if you can believe some letters to The Press published in the last few years, Northwood is building a reputation as a speed trap. This is anecdotal evidence, so take it with a grain of salt. But, here are some excerpts:
 
“Welcome to Northwood. No thanks, most things at the (Woodville) Mall I can purchase elsewhere without running the risk of speed traps, unreasonable speed limits, and a court date.”
 
This from someone who received three speeding citations from cameras for fines totaling $270: “I am boycotting any business in Northwood. I will not buy my gas on Woodville Road. I will no longer shop at Great Eastern, and my family will no longer eat at restaurants in Northwood….I hope this $270 is worth the loss of the thousands of dollars that my family would have spent at the businesses in Northwood…I refuse to let you take another cent out of the mouths and pockets of my family.”
 
This from a driver nabbed going 40 on the Curtice Road overpass over I-280: “There is no school, nor children crossing and not even any homes on that section of Curtice Road…I could certainly see a 35 mile per hour limit, but the 25 mile per hour limit is but a speed trap.”
 
Here’s another: “I will be boycotting Northwood as well and I’ll be using an alternate route to and from my home.”
 
For every one who wrote a letter, there are dozens who feel the same way and have changed their driving habits to avoid what they view as unfair speed enforcement.
 
That brings me to this: You could say one man’s speed enforcement is another man’s speed trap. I live on a busy street, a feeder into our downtown.  Speed limit signs are posted, 45 in the rural and commercial section, 35 in the sparsely residential district and 25 in the dense residential area with homes close to the road. There is a sign between the 35 and 25 that states “Reduce Speed Ahead”. When my children were small, I called the police to run radar across the street from my home in an effort to slow down motorists who ignored the limits.  I call this legitimate speed enforcement, but I’m sure those caught by the gun would call it a speed trap. The death last year of a Sylvania student, hit by a car as she was crossing the street to catch a school bus, should serve as a reminder to slow down in school zones and during times when buses are operating.
 
That said, the city should review its speed enforcement policies and perhaps conduct a study to determine if area shoppers are avoiding Northwood as the anecdotal evidence suggests. To Northwood’s credit, some policies have been changed. For example, the city installed flashing speed awareness signs at Woodville at Lemoyne. The signs, coupled with increasing the target limit that trips the camera by two miles, resulted in a dramatic reduction of citations. The city also eliminated the speed van earlier this year and it changed the speed limit over the Curtice Road overpass from 25 to 35. Those are steps in the right direction.
 
Northwood issued 1,457 speeding tickets and 2,229 red-light citations in 2009. If Northwood continues its aggressive speed enforcement policy, maybe city officials could entice the owners of the Speed Trap Diner to open a second location, thereby bringing jobs to the city and filling a vacant store front.

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