Politics & Government

Libraries Lend Books — Now El Cerrito Police Will Lend Radar Guns

A new program making the police department's radar guns available to citizens was adopted by the City Council last night.

El Cerrito residents will be able to go to the police department to borrow a radar gun under a new traffic-control plan approved by the City Council.

The radar-gun lending program -- one of several components of a new traffic plan adopted unanimously by the City Council Monday night -- is designed for residents who are worried about speeding cars in their neighborhoods.

Under the program, a citizen who wants to check the speed of cars on his or her street will be able to sign out one of the devices at the police department, said police Lt. Steve Bonini. The device is very simple to operate, and the speed of the targeted vehicle is recorded in about a second, he told El Cerrito Patch in an interview.

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The starting date and other details of the program have yet to be decided, he said, adding that residents would likely be allowed to hold onto the units for two or three  days. Three radar guns are available.

Speeding is surpassed only by parking in the volume of traffic complaints lodged with police in El Cerrito, Bonini said.

Find out what's happening in El Cerritowith free, real-time updates from Patch.

The police department's traffic division has switched to more accurate laser guns to catch speeders, and so police worked with other city officials to make the old radar guns publicly available as part of the city's major overhaul of its traffic control plan, Bonini said.

"In El Cerrito, there's a perception of speed versus actual speed," he said. What may appear to the untrained eye as 35-40 miles per hour may actually be 28 or 29 miles per hour, he said.

El Cerrito Police Chief Sylvia Moir said the program is not intended for direct   enforcement. Residents who are issued the radar guns wouldn't be expected to take action, or record license numbers, she told El Cerrito Patch.

The purpose is to provide residents with the means to measure whether speeding is in fact a problem in their neighborhood, she said. If it is, then police could take appropriate enforcement action.

Bonini said he got the idea from the Hayward police department. Hayward doesn't have an official radar gun-lending program, said Hayward police Sgt. Corey Quinn, but it has allowed residents to use the devices on an informal basis when they've reported excessive speeding in their neighborhoods.

"Basically, it was a perception problem," Quinn said. When police have gone out with a radar gun to let a concerned resident confirm the actual speed, the resident might discover that a car thought to be going 45 miles per hour was actually traveling only 23 miles per hour, he said.

The El Cerrito police department is an acknowledged leader in traffic safety. For the past two years, the 40-officer department has won first place in the California Law Enforcement Challenge competition for departments with 26-50 officers, which is the largest division in the annual traffic-safety contest.


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