A bill in the Pennsylvania Senate would allow local police to use radar to catch speeders.

Pennsylvania is the only state that doesn’t permit municipal police to use radar, the York Daily Record reported.

Local police have instead resorted to using such devices as laser reflectors. They are sophisticated versions of the old stopwatch method of calculating speed. A timer is used to track a vehicle as it crosses a light beam and stops after passing a second beam a certain distance apart. From this, the vehicle’s average speed is quickly calculated.

The accuracy of these devices is often challenged.

Bills to permit municipalities to instead use radar have died over the past half-century amid concerns that local officers won’t be properly trained and some departments would write a flurry of tickets to boost local coffers.

Sen. Robert Thompson, R-Chester, revived the effort this year to permit radar only by full-time officers on full-time forces and require passage of a local ordinance to use it.

Local governments would keep fines that equal 5 percent of their annual budget. The rest would go to a state fund for highway repairs.

SB285 is in the Senate Transportation Committee.