Posted by Jeffrey Alan Messer If you should find yourself caught speeding in the City of Kalamazoo, the typical ticket is $109 and 2 points on your license. The stupidest place to speed is South Park Street past West Crosstown Parkway. A speed trap sets up on Park Place at the top of a little hill on the left side of the road or in the parking lot of Sassaman Singer Eye Center PC on the right side of the road. If you are speeding here, you are really speeding because you are going up a hill. It is stupid to speed here not only because of the speedtrap, but also the traffic lights are timed at the speed limit, 30 miles per hour, from Crosstown Parkway to West Michigan Avenue. You are only wasting fuel, wasting your brakes, polluting the air, contributing to thermal pollution, and risking a speeding ticket through here. If the police don't stop you from going faster than 30, then you are going to have to stop at the West Vine Street traffic light and every other light into downtown. So, set your cruise control (unless you drive a Ford) for about 25 to 28 m.p.h. and let all those other hot dogs go by. You'll get to Michigan Avenue just as soon as they will and you'll have saved your brakes, fuel, and avoided a speeding ticket. Every speed trap, except one, I've seen on surface streets targeted inbound traffic, that is heading towards downtown Kalamazoo. So, if you head away from the city, I don't expect you'll run into a speed trap, unless you are going up Howard Street hill by the Kalamazoo Public Schools Administration Building. I've never seen a speedtrap on surface streets outside of the City of Kalamazoo (i. e. Kalamazoo Township, City of Parchment, City of Portage, and neighboring unincorporated areas). People have told me they've seen speed traps in the City of Parchment and City of Portage, but I've never seen one. One reason speed traps are more common in the City of Kalamazoo is the city has more police per capita than any other jurisdiction in the county. I read the city has about 1.1 officers per 1,000 people. On the opposite end of the spectrum, the Kalamazoo County Sheriff (which patrols unincorporated areas like Oshtemo Township, Texas Township, and Comstock Township) has only .1 officers per 1,000 people. So, if you get pulled over by a Sheriff's Deputy for speeding, you must have really been speeding. Excepting Interstate 94 and U. S. 131, the only targeted traffic enforcement I've seen in Kalamazoo County outside the City of Kalamazoo was a seat belt enforcement zone on M-96 at the village limits of Augusta over Memorial Day weekend 2005.
on August 14, 2007, 8:44 pm, in reply to "Kalamazoo Speed Traps On Stadium Drive"
The Stadium Drive WMU Power Plant speed trap was in operation today at 2:41 p.m. Despite light traffic, the Kalamazoo Department of Public Safety all-black patrol car was doing good business. Just as the officer waved over a large bluish pickup truck, the previous speeder in a car was pulling out of the power plant driveway. With Western Michigan University students beginning their return for the fall semester, this speedtrap and others on the west side of Kalamazoo may be in operation over the next few weeks. Students new to Kalamazoo will also probably receive their first $8 ticket for parking on the wrong side of the street between 2 and 6 a.m. 296
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