Allowing municipal police to use radar for speed enforcement has been rejected every time it has been proposed in the Pennsylvania General Assembly. At least part of the reluctance to approve the measure has stemmed from the fear that communities might set up speed traps mostly for money-making purposes.

Unless there has been a radical change in the legislature's attitude on this issue, the odds then are stacked against another proposal that is working its way through the legislature. Regardless, there is cause to reflect on why every other state authorizes radar use by municipal officers while Pennsylvania has remained opposed to granting that power.

Is there fear about the quality of local officers? In today's era of beefed-up police training, that fear should be without merit.

The latest municipal radar-use proposal to emerge here is the work of Reps. Bryan Lentz, D-Delaware, and Mike Vereb, R-Montgomery. The bill is going to the House Transportation Committee for hearings.

Legislative leaders should not allow it to become bogged down or to be shelved. It deserves action on the committee level and then by the full House and Senate.

Lentz was quoted in a Pittsburgh newspaper as saying, "Putting radar equipment in the hands of local police would increase safety on our streets and reduce fatalities."

That opinion is correct. Allowing radar's use would make many more motorists wary of exceeding posted speed limits, and slower speeds translate into safer roads.

Drivers aren't so reluctant now to exceed posted speeds in smaller communities. They know that radar use currently is allowed only by the state police, who, because of their limited numbers, must focus on heavily traveled highways, not roads with much lower traffic volumes.

On the issue of communities turning their access to radar into gold mines, the new legislation contains the provision that fines collected from speeders could be used only to compensate communities for the costs incurred in training local officers, and recovering the cost of the radar equipment. Revenue beyond those purposes would be sent to the state police for traffic safety purposes.

But not being able to exact any profit from the use of radar might cause some municipal officials to balk at approving its use.

It's true that municipal police currently have authorization to use systems that measure the time it takes for a vehicle to move between two points. There's also a new system called ENRADD, which involves a device placed along a road that shoots a laser beam across the road. When a vehicle passes through it, it records the speed on a device inside a nearby police cruiser.

But none of those systems are superior to radar, and state lawmakers should have confidence in local police officers' ability and commitment to use it in the right way.

It also would be a long-overdue show of confidence in the skills and professionalism of local officers.

Local police departments have come a long way over the past 30 years. Rejecting the Lentz-Vereb proposal would deliver the message that lawmakers aren't very comfortable with that assumption.

— J.R.K.