TURNER – Route 4 speeders might not see Maine State Trooper Ricci Cote in the next few weeks, but they can be sure he’s looking for them.

“I have an unmarked car, a stealth car, that we get to use for a couple of weeks,” Cote said. “So, we’re definitely going to be out there.”

Cote is part of an effort to crack down on dangerous speeding statewide. The effort is being carried out by state troopers from the Gray barracks and Androscoggin County Sheriff’s deputies,

The tools are the same: Radar, unmarked cars and aircraft when it’s available.

But the methods have changed a bit, thanks to the state’s global-information mapping system. State Police and the Maine Department of Transportation have used the system to find the stretches of Maine roads with the most speed-related crashes from 2001 through 2003.

Now police are paying special attention to the roads with high crash rates, said State Police Col. Craig Poulin.

“We don’t have the resources to monitor every road,” Poulin said. “But going a few miles over the speed limit in a place that we have verified statistically as being dangerous, that is going to get a response.”

That doesn’t mean the state is abandoning roads that don’t show up on the map.

Troopers will continue to patrol in areas they know to be a problem, Poulin said. “But now we have statistically verifiable data that shows where the problems are. It’s another weapon in our arsenal.”

Problem areas

Based on the state’s GIS mapping, some areas stood out as particularly bad, Poulin said: Route 3 between Belfast and Augusta, Route 111 near Arundel and Route 4 through Turner.

On a 5-miles stretch of Route 4, State Police mapped 11 speed-related accidents from 2001 to 2003, accounting for 16 injuries and one death.

“There are bad roads, but in Troop A’s area that is one of the biggest problems,” Poulin said.

State Police already have stepped up patrols in Turner, Cote said.

In a special Monday night “detail,” four state troopers and four sheriff’s deputies patrolled the stretch of Route 4 between the Auburn city line and Northland Plaza in Turner.

They handed out 36 summonses, including 23 for speeding, and gave 31 warnings for excessive speed.

The crackdown will continue, Cote said. Troopers will be stationed along Route 4 more often and he will be out regularly in the stealth car, especially for the next few weeks.

Such intense enforcement might be the best thing for that area, Cote said. Heavy traffic makes it tough for an individual trooper to catch oncoming speeders.

“You can get them on your radar, but it’s hard to find a place to turn around,” Cote said. “That’s why we decided to saturate that area. We really wanted to get that message across.”

Troopers might even be scheduling another speed trap detail in the next few weeks, he said.