Vicksburg police should not ambush drivers.

There’s a new administration and a new police chief in town. Maybe what amounts to an abuse of citizens and visitors will come to an end.

And, no, I haven’t gotten a ticket (yet).

Former Chief Tommy Moffett is a person I respect. He did a world of good in stabilizing the Vicksburg Police Department, focusing officers on their mission and injecting accountability during his nearly eight years in office. He had to break a few eggs to get the job done and not everyone agreed with his judgment or his style.

Every time he was asked about citations for speeding, which traffic officers passed out like popcorn at a picture show, he took a simplistic posture. He didn’t put up the signs or impose the fines, he said. His officers were doing their job, which was to enforce the posted limits. If people want the law changed, he said, he’s not the person to talk to.

OK, fine. But in practice what police did was set up in five or six places where limits are inexplicably low and/or where a driver not riding the brakes is a violator.

Pemberton Boulevard, for example, has a flat, four-lane segment where traveling 40 or 45 mph is perfectly safe, but the signs say 30. Officers can set up there and write tickets until their pens run dry.

Indiana Avenue curves on the downhill slope approaching the four-way stop at Porters Chapel from the west. Two or three patrol officers can set up there and fill out pad after pad of citations to people who were already slowing down for the stop sign, but were still going faster than the speed limit.

On Baldwin Ferry near the junior high schools, one posted limit is 10 miles per hour. Try driving 10 miles per hour. It’s almost impossible.

From Interstate 20 to past Vicksburg Muncipal Airport, the speed limit on U.S. 61 South is 45 mph. There is congestion along portions of this route, but for a mile or more through the Signal Hill area, for example, it seems unnatural not to drive 50 or 60 mph. Hundreds of drivers have paid a fine for that.

Moffett’s other argument for high-volume ticketing was to reduce traffic fatalities and he cited a slight year-to-year statistical decline. But as Ross Perot loved to say, “The devil is in the details.” While all the traffic fatalities in the city have been tragic, not many have had anything to do with speeding and none occurred at the ambush points where police find such easy pickings.

Everyone should support police doing their jobs. People should wear seat belts, drive safely and such. Any person operating a car or truck in a way that puts others in danger should be jailed or fined or both. That’s not the point.

What we’ve been having, though is similar to bandits in the Old West. They would hide alongside trails where canyons converged. Anyone passing through the region would pass through such a choke point and could be robbed without the bandits’ horses breaking a sweat.

It’s a tactic that worked for the thieves and it’s a tactic that has worked for police. This approach has done little, if anything, to enhance public safety, but has served to create resentment and lessen respect for officers.

“Protecting and serving” shouldn’t include trapping drivers who have their vehicles 100 percent under control and are posing no danger to anyone.

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Charlie Mitchell is executive editor of The Vicksburg Post. He drives a red 1992 Chevrolet station wagon. The guy in the white SUV is not him.