Jack Smith said he spends hours clocking traffic with his radar guns some days. Kyle Clayton photo.

Standing in his driveway on a rainy Saturday, a miniature cigar hanging between his lips while talking on his cell phone about a plumbing problem at his mother’s house, Jack Smith holds his radar gun toward the road and clocks motorists’ speeds as they drive to and from the dump on FAA Road.

“They slowed right down. They slowed right down,” Smith says to me, still on the phone as a car drives toward him. “They were hard on their brakes when they saw me step out. I clocked him at 27. They were probably going 35 when they came past [the curve.] It’s a blind frigging corner.”

Smith wants people to follow the rules. More than anything, he wants drivers to slow down, especially when driving down FAA Road where his neighbors and two Rottweilers, Portia and Maz A Rotti, walk and play.

For the past two years, Smith has made a hobby out of catching people speeding with his radar gun. Nearly all non-neighborhood traffic exceeds the 25-mph speed limit on his road by at last 10 mph, Smith says. This morning, however, almost every driver abides the speed limit.

Between passing vehicles, Smith gives me a tour of his garage, showing off his dehydrated strawberries, Chicken of the Woods mushrooms, shrimp and canned salmon, a tool used to lift manhole covers and an assortment of wooden bowls he’s crafted with his wood-turning lathes. When we hear the sound of an engine, we run to the door and clock a truck driving toward the dump.

24 mph.

“This kind of bums me out,” Smith said. “They must have known I was going to do something this morning.”

Smith says he and fellow neighbors regularly alert the police to speeders. Haines Borough dispatcher Celeste Grimes said she often hears reports of speeding from area residents. “I would say that we definitely get more complaints on FAA [Road] traffic than most places in town,” Grimes said.

Acting police chief Josh Dryden said he’s heard comments from Smith about speeding. “We try and get up there and designate the time to FAA [Road] every so often,” Dryden said. “It is a contentious subject with people on that road, and it is kind of a bad road.”

Smith has a knack for estimating speed without his radar gun. Before firing his laser, he predicts how fast each vehicle is going, and he’s often only off by about 1 or 2 miles per hour based on the device’s reading. As cars pass his house, he shakes his radar gun up and down in his hand, as if scolding them.

While we wait for another car, Smith lists names of law breakers, many of whom are known environmentalists. I wonder if he’s singling them out, because he earlier lamented the lack of industrial jobs available in town and blamed a contingent of the Haines population for fighting logging and mining, and for chasing working men out of town. But, as the list of names gets longer, it’s obvious Smith’s scorn for speeders is non-partisan. “I’ve spent hours out here, literally,” Smith said. “I’ve had a lot of people stop and ask what I’m doing. I’ve been grabbed once. I had someone stand on the road yelling at me.”

Sean Maidy recently moved into the neighborhood. He said he’s one of the drivers who Smith clocks. “Not only have I been radared by Jack Smith. Jack came over to my house and told me,” Maidy said. “He bangs on my door. He comes, [radar] gun in hand like a quickdraw, [and yells] ‘I’ve been clocking you.’ I said, ‘Well I didn’t know I was speeding.’ He said, ‘Well I’ve caught you. I’ve got you all the time you’ve been tearing down this [road.]'”

Maidy said everywhere he’s lived, it’s normal to exceed the speed limit by about 5 mph.

Smith says he clocks others going even faster. The fastest he’s ever seen someone drive is 49 mph. It’s those speeders that has other neighbors worried.

Neighbor Ted Cheney has three kids, and said he restricts their outside play based on traffic patterns, he says. “I would say pretty much all the non-residents who don’t live here, speed,” Cheney said. “That’s probably a fair assessment. It’s bad. I don’t let my kids out on Saturday. It’s a no-road day.”

Neighbor Lynn Pratt quipped that FAA Road was akin to the racing course of the 24 Hours of Le Mans-the famous French automobile endurance race. Pratt said despite signs warning drivers that children play in the area, and to slow down, they keep speeding.

“I’m really surprised a dog hasn’t been road kill or a kid hasn’t gotten hurt,” Pratt said. “I don’t even like taking my mother out in her wheelchair. They just don’t slow down.”

Grimes said they receive about one or two calls per month, and when dispatchers hear complaints they share the information with officers and ask for extra patrols. According to Alaska Department of Transportation data, an average of 214 vehicles travel FAA Road each day.

After clocking several more drivers who were following the law, Smith glumly decided to give up for the day. He says he’d be happy if the borough just installed two speed bumps along the road where it curves. He sets his radar gun on the table next to his garage door, where it will sit until his next patrol.

“Well, I should probably grab something to eat and see what’s going on at my mother’s,” Smith said.

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