The need for speed. Mario Andretti and Evil Knievel had it. So did Secretariat.

Chances are, the accountant or doctor who lives next door and who drives that black BMW has a lead foot, too.

The National Motorists Association, a grassroots group that defends the rights of the driving public, knows about the need for speed all too well. That was one of the reasons the Wisconsin-based group created speedtrap.org in 1999.

Anyone with the need or desire can visit the site and check out reports about the locations of possible traffic law enforcement activities along their planned route of travel. Visitors can also submit their own reports about these efforts, commonly known as speed traps.

The association does not condone unsafe or reckless driving, but it does have a problem with "under-posted" speed limits, said Eric Skrum, the group's communications director.

"Our philosophy is that if you have a speed limit that is under-posted by five to 15 miles per hour and you have the police regularly enforcing that speed limit, that's a speed trap," Skrum said. "If you take a look at a particular road and that road is straight — there's nothing around there — and the speed limit is 50 mph but 80 percent of the traffic is going 65 mph, you know the police are going there."

That's where speedtrap.org comes in. The Web site's home page features a billboard with a police cruiser laying await behind it, presumably for some unsuspecting speeder. The sign reads, "Speedtrap Exchange." Visitors can either look up suspected speed traps by state, review relevant state laws, read how they can fight speed traps or report their experiences.

Skrum said the site is not intended to encourage people to break the law but rather to inform them about ways to change laws or practices that interfere with their good driving judgment.

"If you look at speed limits, many times it is not what the traffic engineer would recommend," he said. "The majority of signs are five to 15 mph below what they should be. What we say is let the traffic engineers do their jobs without political pressure and pressure from the community."

The Web site — whose sister site is roadblock.org — claims 15,000 unique visitors per month. That is not a high amount of traffic, but it is up 5,000 per month from a year ago.

The law enforcement community is, understandably, not too keen about speedtrap.org and similar sites, including speedtrap.com. Among other problems, the definition of the term "speed trap" is in dispute.

The National Traffic Enforcement Association prefers the American Automobile Association's definition of a "speed trap" as a community whose local government budget relies heavily on revenue from speeding fines. NTEA director and founder Alan Hughes said only a few communities in the country truly fit that definition.

"I do not like the term speed trap, period," said Hughes. "Our goal is deterrence. The goal is to drop the speeds back down to a reasonable level, not to write the ticket."

Web sites offering information about traffic enforcement activities, including speedtrap.org, do not verify the submissions, Hughes complained.

"It's a completely unrealistic site. None of the entries are verified. You can basically make up a story that never happened, submit it and it will stand on that site," he said. "What speedtrap.org is basically is is a place for people who got caught and got a ticket. It is place for them vent, that's all it really is."

Casey Raskob, a National Motorists Association activist, said he encourages people who get tickets to do more than vent. He said there are many ways to beat tickets, and noted that most jurisdictions will lower fines as an incentive to keep dockets clear of contested cases.

"Usually I tell people that you have to fight every ticket," said Raskob, an upstate New York attorney who specializes in defending motor vehicle cases. "[The site] is overly comprehensive ... It will tell you what color cop cars are [out there.] That's handy to know."

Raskob, who represents a lot of truckers, said that most people do not realize that merely paying speeding tickets can add points to their license and cause them problems at work later if they need to drive to do their job. He estimates that he has handled 2,500 tickets for clients in the past 10 years, and four of his own.

"Speeding tickets are very interesting because, hey, your grandmother gets speeding tickets, Raskob, 40, said. "I have represented everyone from celebrities from the guy who has to send me my fee in three money orders because it is a lot of money to him."

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