O Great Mahatma: On the new route off Interstate 430 heading to Bass Pro Shop, did the Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department intend to build a speed bump with the concrete exit portion onto the asphalt? Will this be ground down to a respectable height? — Bonk
Dear Bonk: Mark Headley, chief engineer of District 6 of the Highway Department, said the agency was aware of this unintentional speed bump. It’s out of compliance with specifications for smoothness.
The contractor, he said, has indicated it will grind the offending lump to acceptable smoothness measurements.
He adds that such corrections are generally done at no cost to the Highway Department or the taxpayers.
Dear Mahatma: I read your column about the expense of fixing cable median barriers. When people plow into these things, will their insurance pay for the damages? — Out in the Country
Dear Country: David Nilles, a spokesman for the Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department, said that whenever there is damage to something owned by the department — sign, guardrail, cable median barrier, bridge railing, etc. — the agency seeks reimbursement from the responsible party. Oftentimes that means working with an individual’s insurance company.
Vanity plate seen in Conway: AKA Mom.
Dear Mahatma: What recourse is there for speed traps in Arkansas? — Your Old Pal Walter
Dear Old Pal: There are two definitions of speed trap. The first is “Where I got a speeding ticket.”
The second is somewhat more formal and includes Arkansas Code Annotated 12-8-401 through 12-8-404. Maybe the most important part of the law is the description of “abusing police power.” That means “the exercise of police power … for the principal purpose of raising revenues for the municipality and not for the purpose of public safety and welfare.”
A prosecutor who smells a speed trap may ask the Arkansas State Police to investigate. A city violates the speed trap law if the revenue from traffic fines exceeds 30 percent of a city’s total expenditures. Or if more than 50 percent of the speeding tickets are written for 10 mph or less over the posted limit.
The prosecutor then has the power to order two remedies. First, to order the city police to stop patrolling “any and all affected highways.” Second, to order that any or all revenue generated by the fines be turned over to the county for operation of the public schools.
Such investigations are rare. Only two turn up in the newspaper’s archives, and the last appears to have been in 1998. The two towns were Gilmore, in Crittenden County; and Tyronza, in Poinsett County.
We asked the state police if there any active speed trap investigations. Nope. And a review of the last 10 years reveals none.
Skeptics — cynics — may now respond.
Vanity plate seen in Little Rock: NI HAO. We’re told that’s Mandarin Chinese for “Hello.”
Mahatma@arkansasonline.com