By Clarence Cromwell
Drivers who break the 65 mph speed limit on Highway 85 now must elude more than patrol cars and motorcycle cops to avoid being ticketed.
The California Highway Patrol on Aug. 20 began using a Cessna plane to identify speeders as part of a CHP crackdown on moving violations along Highway 85.
The crackdown follows media scrutiny of the road, which lacks a median barrier. In the last six months, six people have died in collisions when vehicles crossed the highway's median strip separating north/southbound traffic.
On its first day out, Aug. 20, the patrol plane spotted 29 speeding drivers between 10 a.m. and noon. CHP officers in the air pointed the cars out to officers in patrol cars, who wrote tickets that day for drivers traveling between 72 and 94 mph.
The plane was slated for a second day of patrol Aug. 21 and will continue to seek out Highway 85 speeders at least three-five times a month indefinitely.
The Napa-based plane patrols highways regularly, but wasn't requested along the full length of Highway 85 until the recent rash of accidents occurred.
Although stealthy, the patrol plane isn't high tech.
A CHP officer in the Cessna compares the plane's speed with the speed of a car, just as patrol cars usually clock drivers by traveling a similar speed.
"They probably never even see the plane," said John Maxfield CHP public affairs officer and writer of some of the aerial tickets. But the tickets include a notation that a plane timed the driver.
Other measures taken to slow down traffic include a radar-loaded trailer that tells drivers how fast they're traveling, and three extra patrol officers on Highway 85 seven days a week.
The stepped-up enforcement began Aug. 8.
"We're doing as much as we can to be out there in view, so people know we're out there," Maxfield said.
This article appeared in the Saratoga News, August 28, 1996.
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