In 1947, the inhabitants of a three-block residential area in Ohio decided to incorporate as a municipality called the village of New Rome. By the year 2000, the village had grown—but only slightly. It encompassed two-hundredths of a square mile, and per the census that year was home to sixty people. Nevertheless, fourteen of the sixty were police officers who patrolled the area and its one main road—and the village leaders apparently wanted even more officers. The reason? The New Rome speed trap, a notorious feature of Ohio travel, and a lucrative one for the tiny village.
West Broad Street, a relatively busy roadway, runs through the area. Decades ago, it was the main road coming out of the state capital of Columbus, five or ten miles away, before I-70 was built in the late 1950s and the 1960s. Nevertheless, it still has a steady flow of traffic—one that New Rome treated like a honey pot. The posted speed limit on West Broad is forty-five miles per hour, but until 2003, the tiny section that ran through New Rome had a lower speed limit of thirty-five miles per hour. The well-staffed New Rome police force watched the area nearly around the clock with ticket books at the ready, waiting for the inevitable speeding violations caused by the sudden drop-off.
The program was quite lucrative. In an average year, New Rome brought in $400,000 in gross revenue through traffic tickets. But the volume of the tickets issued wasn’t the only reason why the village made so much money—zealous (overzealous, likely) enforcement was also a key element. Almost all the ticketed drivers lived outside of New Rome, but that didn’t stop the small village from taking extreme measures to enforce the tickets. As Car and Driver reported, “Once stopped, drivers [were] routinely asked where they work. Fail to pay the fine on time, and a New Rome cop or two may appear at your work place the day after, handcuff you in front of the boss, and haul you off for payment discussions.”
A $90 fine for speeding wasn’t the only thing drivers were typically faced with. If you were pulled over in New Rome, there was a good chance that you’d find yourself on the wrong end of a laundry list of fines. Have tinted windows? Tack on another $105. No front license plate? $55 more. Make an unsafe lane change—and you can imagine how subjective that is—another $90. In total, you could be ticketed for more than a dozen various violations as officers conveniently found ways to run up the tab.
The good news for travelers along this route? The speed traps are gone. For that matter, so is the entire village of New Rome—but not because of the abusive traffic controls. In 1979, New Rome held an election for village council and never did so after that. The council members—almost all members of the same family—just kept re-appointing one another to vacant seats, arguing that the others in the municipality weren’t interested in running. Further, the state of Ohio noted, the village didn’t actually provide many (if any) meaningful services to the public. Most were provided at the township, county, or state level. Based on these factors, the state forcibly dissolved the village (over the protests of many of New Rome’s residents) and mandated that it be absorbed into the surrounding township.
In 2010, the Supreme Court of Ohio decided that police officers do not need to use radar guns to determine if you’ve been speeding—they just need experience. According to a report by ABC News, the court ruled that “a police officer’s unaided visual estimation of a vehicle’s speed is sufficient evidence to support a conviction for speeding . . . if the officer is properly trained.” Soon thereafter the state legislature passed a law requiring the use of actual speed detection devices.