It was encouraging to see Butler Township Police respond to residents’ concerns about speeding on Belmont Drive — and even more encouraging to see such positive results reported by Chief John Hays at last week’s meeting of township commissioners.

At the meeting Hays reported that a mobile speed evaluation unit set up along the road for 13 days collected data on more than 18,000 vehicles. The vast majority — 85 percent — were recorded traveling at or below the road’s 25 mile-per-hour speed limit. A tiny fraction — about 3 percent — were recorded traveling 35 mph or faster.

This should be good news to residents concerned about speeding vehicles along Belmont Drive — although we acknowledge that the very presence of the radar unit itself might have prompted drivers to moderate their speed.

The township has moved the device to East Brady Street, where it will again collect data that will, hopefully, give residents and public officials a deeper understanding of how drivers behave while traveling along the road.

It’s that’s all that is accomplished here — collecting and reporting data — then township officials will have missed a great opportunity to act both responsibly and responsively when it comes to resident concerns about safe roads throughout the municipality.

We don’t know of any grievously dangerous stretches of road in Butler Township — but that doesn’t mean they don’t exist.

Residents living along these corridors of travel are officials’ first resource when it comes to whether or not change is necessary. But hard data on driving habits is a far better option when it comes to making informed decisions about how to respond to issues like speeding and dangerous driving.