What are our police doing?

[Guest]

Yesterday afternoon during rush hour, I noticed two police cars (one was the white car you usually see on Plainsboro Rd.) stationed on the corner of Rt. 130 and Old Trenton Rd. They apparently were stopping and ticketing people using the right-hand shoulder on Rt. 130 South as a right-turn lane to turn onto Old Trenton Rd.

This is ridiculous. Our police should be out patrolling our town and ticketing speeders and reckless drivers, not hanging out stopping people who are actually driving in a safe manner. (There should be a right turn lane here. Making a right from the travel lane can be dangerous and impedes the flow of traffic).

[Guest]

Totally agree. I didn't see them doing that, but it is ridiculous to ticket for that and you're correct that it is actually safer and better driving to pull to the right before turning there anyway.

Meanwhile I rarely see them actually pulling over the speeders. I often see empty parked cruisers around as a deterrent I guess but they don't actually man them. I also see them on Trenton a lot but rarely ticketing the limit is legally 50 miles anyway.

[wcody]

The right hand turn on Rt 130 and Old Trenton Rd is very dangerous. There should be a right hand turn lane. The previous poster is correct that turning from the travel lane impedes traffic flow. A more dangerous issue is someone in the travel lane taking a right turn and someone moving into the break down lane passing a line of cars on the right hand side in order to take a right turn. This is a scenario that has a potential for an accident, I have witnessed some near-miss collissions. I would guess the police are trying to prevent that type of accident but the real solution is a right hand turn lane.

[Guest]

I agree -- please ticket more speeders. If you look at the police reports, they give out fewer speeding tickets than other types. Dont fault the drivers for poor road / intersection construction and lack of planning. Its self preservation.

[yes]

I totally agree that there should be a right turn lane from Rt-130 South to Old Trenton Rd.

I saw a discussion of doing just that before. But somehow this discussion resulted no change at all.

Maybe Carnabury police is using this a "revenue" source (a.k.a a golden goose), because drivers are likely to make a right turn through the shoulder lane.

[Guest]

Maybe this is the case.

http://www.packetonline.com/articles/2008/04/04/cranbury_press/news/doc47f64bfe5941c979386148.txt

This is most likely what you are talking about.

[Guest]

[Guest]

I see the police in the village all the time enforcing the speed limit.
You need to stop picking on the police.

[Guest]

[Guest]

[confusion?]

There seems to be some confusion here.

I believe the police won't ticket you if you are making a right without any cars parked ahead waiting for lights, even if you cross the solid white line just before your turn. But don't travel on the shoulder lane too long to make the turn.

If you are trying to make a right turn through the shoulder lane while there are cars *ahead* of you (i.e. you are passing other cars through shoulder lane to make the turn), then you might get a ticket if the police sees your act.

I think it's a good idea to add a right turn only lane there to ease congestion.

[Crangury Greene]

[Guest]

[Guest]

[Guest]

Warnings or explanations of what the driver should do should be given out by the police. If its a confusing area, why would a ticket be given out? It seems that doing what the police want you to do at this light is more likely to cause an accident.

Concerning speeding tickets -- Cranbury police used to police Main street and Plainsboro road ruthlessly (maybe 10-14 years ago?) They were known for it thoughout the state. There used to be a car monitoring speed just about every day on Plainsboro road. And I'm sure that was with a smaller police force. So what happened since then? I'm not sure. I can only guess -- perhaps the growth? Warehouses? They do a decent job at looking for speeders, but it just doesnt seem to be the same as it was.

[Guest]