As a long time resident of Double Oak (14 years) I have read Mr. Cooks opinions and philosophies over the years and have bitten my tongue but after reading his latest column in the July edition of The Cross Timbers Gazette, I have to speak out.

Double Oak rightly deserves its place in the speedtrap.org website. I rarely see police in town patrolling the neighborhoods but I do see them at least twice a day hiding on Kings or Simmons trying to give citations to unsuspecting motorists as they make their way through our town. Nothing infuriates me more than to read signs posted throughout our town that there is a Neighborhood Crime spree and then see our police sitting on the sides of the two main roads waiting to give out speeding tickets to people that are going 35 in a 30!

Contrary to what Mr. Cook says, the current policy of Double Oak and its “Traffic Calming” police enforcement does not work. I still see people running stop signs at the intersection of Kings and Simmons on a regular basis and I still see people speeding down Simmons as I try to get on to the street from my house.

Like Mr. Cook, I also remember the times when Double Oak had a part time police force and I don’t really understand why this town ever felt the need to increase the size of the force to its current level and cost if the majority of the work our police do is traffic enforcement.

If this town is really worried about the safety of the citizens, it should reanalyze it philosophy on the speeding policy, and the speed limits in this town and the actual priority of the police force. Perhaps our town council should determine if 30 mph on Simons and Kings is really justified and think about increasing that speed to 35. Maybe there are some alternatives to having our highly trained police force sitting in hiding on the sides of our streets. Perhaps, low profile speed bumps or rumble strips on the two main streets would reduce speeding and allow our police to do what they are paid to do which is protect us and ensure our safety.

I, unlike Mr. Cook, am not happy that we are highly visible on the speedtrap.org website because to me that means our police force is not doing what we expect them to do. Instead of keeping my neighborhood safe and showing a presence in all areas of our town, our police are spending their time on two main streets in hiding, to follow an old town council agenda that prioritized this sort of behavior years ago.

Hopefully with new members on the town council, these types of items will be reviewed and improved so we don’t have a well trained, paid police force making our town well known on a national website for speed traps while we continue to have property crime in this town.

Bob Garlick
Double Oak, TX