State patrol clears Arcade police of running speed trap

ARCADE - The Georgia State Patrol has cleared the Arcade Police Department of accusations that it had been running a speed trap.

During a four-month investigation, the State Patrol looked at the number of tickets issued to motorists traveling less than 17 mph over the speed limit.

Under state law, the city would have been guilty of running a speed trap if the revenue generated from those speeding tickets made up more than 40 percent of the police department's budget.

Investigators found that the total revenue from those tickets in Arcade totaled just $31,000 - or 5.8 percent of the department's budget for 2002.

Arcade Police Chief Dennis Bell has attributed Arcade's increasing speeding problems to the completion of the U.S. Highway 129 bypass in 2002. That's where the speed limit drops to 45 mph just inside the Arcade city limits.