The Salisbury Township Police Department is caught in a speed trap of sorts.

Or, more to the point, the police department is a victim of its own success.

Salisbury Township Police Chief Allen W. Stiles announced the police department will no longer receive an annual $5,000 grant from the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation to enforce speed limits. The setting up of enforcement for speeding motorists is often referred to as a speed trap.

Stiles told commissioners at the Jan. 14 meeting the Catch 22 is township police department stepped-up enforcement of speed limits has apparently helped to reduce vehicular crashes.

“Our traffic crashes have been reduced,” Stiles explained to commissioners, noting, “Our statistics for crashes have gone down so they’re no longer going to fund us.”

The aggressive driver program will continue in the township.

“It doesn’t mean we’re going to stop enforcement,” Stiles said.

PennDOT has provided the funds annually for eight years.

The funding is provided via a formula tied to vehicular crashes.

The grant helped to pay for overtime for Salisbury police officers participating in speed limit enforcement.

The township may have to pick up the overtime for the program to continue.

The most recent traffic fatality in the township is believed to have happened two years ago along East Susquehanna Street when three people died in a car crash at the Allentown municipal line.