Road Rants: Speeding is common in Bend

NewsChannel 21 hit the streets with a radar gun to find out how often people speed in Bend. We caught people on the parkway, on 27th Street, Empire Avenue and in residential neighborhoods.

We also talked with two people who were caught speeding — not by us, but by police.

La Pine resident Grant Caudel said he saw the cop as he passed him and just had a feeling something might happen.

He was pulled over for going 42 mph in a 25 mph zone. He admits he was running late to class, but probably shouldn’t have been going that fast.

“I think he saw my parking sticker on the way up, because his first question was, ‘Were you a little late to class this morning?'” Caudel said, laughing.

According to Bend Police Sgt. Eric Hagan, speed limits do matter.

“Our ultimate goal is to reduce crash numbers,” Hagan said.

Hagan said people are usually just in a hurry to get to where they need to be.

Sometimes people hit the brakes if they see a police car, but according to Hagan, that won’t do you any good. An officer has your speed marked long before you reach them.

“You know, when we are utilizing our lasers, we are taking readings upwards of 1,200, 1,300 feet. So by the time they see us, we already have our speed reading,” Hagan said.

La Pine resident Leah McKinney also admitted to driving too fast. She commutes to work in Bend every day.

“I was actually going ridiculously fast,” McKinney said. “I knew I was doing something stupid.”

McKinney said she was on her way to her first day at a new job. But an officer caught her speeding through a 55 mph zone on Highway 97.

“(Highway) 97 gets really frustrating between La Pine and Sunriver, because there are only two passing lanes and there are so many semi-trucks,” McKinney said. “Yeah, I floored it”

When she saw the officer, her stomach dropped.

“It was like the doomsday thing, like, ‘This is going to happen soon,'” McKinney said. “I actually ended up pulling over without him turning his lights on because I felt so guilty.”

She said she understands why it happened: safety.

“It got to the point where I was like, ‘This is my fault,'” McKinney said. “I was driving way too fast, and it was really unsafe for other people.”

According to Hagan, that’s usually the case.

“Most people we deal with, they’re good people. They live in our community, and they also want the community to be safe,” Hagan said. “They realize they just made an error.”

The state sets speed limits, but communicating why those limits exist is important. For example, the 45 mph speed limit on the Bend Parkway is all about the design.

“The lanes are not as wide as a standard state highway,” Hagan said. “We don’t have the standard median as a highway, and as most people know, the on- and off-ramps just don’t work well with people merging on and off at a highway speed.”

But speeding on the parkway is not the issue officers hear about the most.

“I get a lot of complaints on a daily basis of speeding in neighborhoods, and that’s one of the biggest things I worry about,” Hagan said.

That’s because of kids wandering, playing or biking on the streets.

Last year, 2,800 crashes happened in Bend alone. The officers want to lower that number.

Caudel said, “(I) just to try to keep in mind that these guys are doing the best they can with the information they have right now, vs. they’re not out there to make your day bad.”

Hagan said it depends on the department’s staffing numbers, but right now there are two officers on the Bend Police traffic team. Speeding fines are set by the state and depend on how fast a driver was going and in what location.