Electric speed signs helpful

Thanks, Sheriff Louis Ackal, for bringing those two speed signs to New Iberia.

While I’m still in favor of speed vans and/or red light cameras for the city, the portable signs that flash a vehicle’s speed as it passes in front of it are prudent ways to get the message across to drivers who exceed the speed limit.

And there are too many people with a heavy foot on the gas pedal. Our streets aren’t safe for other traffic or pedestrians when people go faster than the posted speed limit.

You see speeders in school zones, around intersections and most two-way streets whether one-lane or two-lane. It chafes my rear end to witness the stupidity that often results in near-miss accidents.

Our sheriff is aware of it. That’s why he invested $11,000 in each portable speed trailer with grants from the state Department of Transportation and Development’s Transportation Improvement Program.

“I get complaints from all over the parish about speeding,” Ackal said Wednesday in The Daily Iberian.

This is the first step to confront the problem.

His deputies are writing hundreds of tickets, he said, and will keep writing tickets. After the signs are set up in certain areas, an internal log in each marks when the speed limit is busted most frequently.

Then deputies can target those trouble areas. The public can expect it, Ackal said.

“The deputies are then able to compare that information with complaints they are receiving from the public. The units aren’t going to replace officers but make motorists conscious of their present speed,” he said.

Apparently, the signs are doing the job.

“You watch people coming along maybe doing 43 or 44, and all of a sudden they hit the brakes,” said Mike Andrus, who was in a prime location to watch the action this week from his Ronnie’s Paint & Carpet Center on Lewis Street. The speed limit there is 35 mph.

Hopefully, the signs will act as a deterrent to anyone who thinks about speeding.

DON SHOOPMAN

SENIOR NEWS EDITOR