Treasure Island Florida City Hall

Gulf Beach News

Speeding In Our Neighborhood

The big issue this month here on Treasure Island is drivers speeding through our neighborhoods. The City has spent thousands in consultant fees and has received several recommendations on how to slow these irresponsible drivers.

Of course, our beloved Commissioners have discounted, well, actually ignored, the recommendations of the professionals. Proclaiming themselves experts in the field of traffic calming, the Commissioners have decided that the recommended speed calming devices such as raised crosswalks and speed bumps are too much of an inconvenience and more passive approaches need to be taken.

One of those passive approaches targets speeding business vehicles such as those from pool cleaning and lawn maintenance companies. This program would involve writing a friendly note to the business whose vehicles are seen or caught speeding letting the owner know his employees are operating his vehicles in an unsafe manner. Sounds great doesn’t it. You and I are going to pay a Treasure Island City employee to track the speeder, write the letters, mail the letters and then field the calls the City is going to receive from the business owners who will tell the City there must be some sort of mistake because he just talked to the accused employee who says he didn’t speed and the offending vehicle and driver must work for that other pool cleaning or landscaping company whose trucks look just like.... well you get the point.

Another passive speed calming device being looked into is the use of digital read out radar speed signs. You know the ones; they flash the speed your car is traveling as you drive by the sign. When you add up the cost of purchase and maintenance the City is spending thousands per sign. Great idea you say. Well think a minute. The next time you get in your car or truck look down behind the steering wheel. I bet you will probably see an instrument built into the dash board that has numbers progressing from zero to over one hundred. It’s commonly referred to as a speedometer and is federally mandated to be placed in each and every vehicle sold in this country.

Now, it gets real complicated from this point on so pay attention. The City Commission wants to spend thousands of taxpayers dollars for signs that tell a driver of a vehicle how fast that vehicle is traveling down the street when that vehicle in fact has it’s own speed measuring device built into the dash board and all the driver has to do is look at that speed measuring device to find out how fast the car or truck is going.

Bottom line, WE ARE GOING TO SPEND THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS TO TELL DRIVERS WHAT THEY ALREADY KNOW, THEY ARE GOING TOO DAMN FAST!

So Treasure Island resident, the next time your are walking or riding your bike along the streets of Treasure Island and a lawn maintenance truck misses you by inches going nearly twice the speed limit, rest assured that your Commissioner is doing as little as possible to make your neighborhood safer.

(This letter was also printed in the 7/5/06 St. Petersburg Times)