Thomas Patterson Emerald
Cars sometimes can be found speeding at the intersection of East 15th Avenue and University Street, which is also awash with bicyclists and pedestrians every afternoon.
Radar Gun 5674 has seen a lot of speeding in its day.
An invaluable member of the Eugene Police Department’s campus patrol division, Radar Gun 5674’s laser eye has caught many vehicles speeding in and around the University over the past few years. Some of its victims have been late, some have been angry and a few have even been drunk.
Officer Pete Aguilar, Radar Gun 5674’s partner, has heard a lot of excuses from people the gun spies. He said it’s a common vice for students, and he thinks about 85 percent of campus drivers exceed the 15 mph campus limit. Sometimes he even has to laugh at the “crazy” things he’s heard from drivers he’s pulled over.
A driver once told Aguilar that pedestrians, bikers and automobiles in Eugene have an agreement, and therefore the driver could legally run a stop sign. The most common excuse Aguilar hears is that speeding rules don’t apply on campus.
“A lot of times I’ll laugh to myself and say, ‘I don’t get it,’ and move on,” Aguilar said.
If Radar Gun 5674 were a person, it would hate drivers who speed, and it would dream of the day when everyone obeys the speed limit. If that day comes, Radar Gun 5674 might have a front-row seat in Arizona’s Bank One Ballpark clocking the speed of Randy Johnson’s fastball, or a skybox at the Multnomah Greyhound Tracks overlooking Oregon’s sport of kings.
Radar Gun 5674 will probably never make it there, though, because speeding is such a common phenomenon around campus. Aguilar didn’t have exact speeding figures available, but he said he thinks that in addition to those exceeding the on-campus speed limit, about half of the drivers in the area surrounding the University go 5-10 mph faster than the speed limit.
Aguilar said the most common speeding time comes during the last fifteen minutes of each hour, when classes are ending and students are late.
“It actually comes down to — the time of day people speed is actually the worst time to,” he said.
Jose Arevalos, a University student from Los Angeles, doesn’t drive at school, but when at home he sometimes speeds frequently. He said a road near his California home has a 50 mph speed limit, “and I go 70 (mph) on it all the time.”
“There’s a big corner on it, and you just hit it fast and off you go,” he said.
Arevalos said he thinks most students speed when they get their licenses. He was no exception.
“You try to find out what the top speed of your car is,” Arevalos said. “When I first got my license, I found out my Blazer had a (speed) governor and wouldn’t go faster than 95 (mph).”
Arevalos has never been pulled over, but he had one close call. He was driving 70 mph in a 40 mph zone and slammed on his breaks to stop for a red light.
“Then I saw there were cops on both sides of the intersection, and if the light had been green, I would’ve been busted,” he said.
Aguilar said that most of the drivers he’s busted speed because their mind isn’t on the road.
“The main reason I’ve found is that people are already thinking about what’ll happen when they reach their destination,” he said. “It’s like their mind is already there.”
He said that anger can also affect people’s decision to speed.
“Aggressive drivers by nature usually don’t clue in as much that they’re taking risks,” Aguilar said.
John Edwards, a psychology professor at Oregon State University, said the notion that speeding and other aggressive behaviors can release tension is a myth, and tests have overwhelmingly indicated such activities only build tension in a person.
“I can understand people thinking speeding or other aggressive behavior is cathartic,” Edwards said. “It’s an old Freudian notion that’s become ingrained in our society. But it turns out it’s not the case.”
Edwards said aggressive behavior perpetuates itself and forms patterns of aggression in an individual, instead of relieving it.
“You’re learning behaviors, and if anything it’s more likely to increase aggression,” he said.
Edwards said that aggressive behavior is often accompanied by emotional arousal, and that certain activities, like running, can reduce the arousal. He said the lack of physical activity plus the additional attention necessary while speeding do not reduce arousal, though.
“It probably winds you up more than it winds you down,” he said.
E-mail reporter Marty Toohey
at [email protected].