Recession Could Spur Traffic Citations

[Auggie]

A new study finds local governments - at least in North Carolina - use traffic citations to make up for revenue shortfalls.

Thomas Garrett, assistant vice president at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, and Gary Wagner from the University of Arkansas Little Rock, examined 14 years of revenue and traffic citation data from 96 counties in North Carolina.

"A one percentage point decrease in last year's local government revenue results in roughly a 0.32 percentage point increase in the number of traffic tickets in the following year," Garrett and Wagner write.

The finding adds credence to something many drivers have long suspected: Safety isn't the only thing motivating cops. Since many municipalities retain the money generated by traffic fines, perhaps traffic enforcement also acts as a bit of a fundraiser, the researchers speculate.

LINK: http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20090112/sc_livescience/recessioncouldspurtrafficcitations

[FiveGoodMen]

1. Law enforcement agencies should never be allowed to profit from the work they do

(Profit is not the same as getting paid for your time)

[cloudbase]

2. There's a shocker.

The city makes money.
The cop gets some overtime.
You pay.



Hey! Two out of three ain't bad.

[guns4 all]

18. only fair

why shouldn't the local town/county get a cut?? they are the ones enforcing state laws. doing the leg work for the state.
I think 1/3 of the fine money is fair.. not too much to make it a revenue getter, but takes the edge off of the budget crunches.

[Shardik]

3. Which may backfire as they have to jail those that cannot pay.

Great idea. :sarcasm:

[backscatter712]

4. What do you mean "could"?

It's already happening. Last year, I forgot to renew my car's registration, got pulled over by a state trooper, and the trooper flat out told me that the state government's trying to drum up revenue, and he was being told to impound vehicles with expired plates instead of ticketing them. He was at least nice enough to just let me go with a ticket.

[Uben]

5. My nephew is a state trooper in Texas

This past fall, he told me monies and property forfeited in drug related arrests and convictions was used to build their training facilities and buy eqipment. I suspected this was the case, but he reaffirmed it. I think that's why they spend a lot of time on I-35 trying to identify smugglers. If you fit the bill, they are going to pull you over! I was pulled over a few years ago about 100 miles south of Dallas when I was returning from my daughter's graduation from college. I was driving a black Coupe DeVille Cadillac with tinted windows. The trooper said I was doing two miles an hour over the speed limit. Then, he said my window tint was too dark. I told him it was factory tinting, and when he checked it with his meter, it confirmed it was legal. Then, he said while he was behind me, I had crossed the solid white line on the shoulder a few times. I told him that was because he was staying in my blind spot and I was trying to locate him in my rearview mirrors! He proceeded to ask me what I did for a living to be able to afford a car like that. I told him I was retired and the car was three years old!

Get this! He wrote me a warning ticket for driving two mph over the limit, dark window tint, and crossing the white line. I gladly signed the warning ticket and was very cordial to him because it was just a warning and did not go on my record. But, it was very obvious he was profiling. I don't really care because if that's what it takes to get smugglers in jail, a little inconvenience for me is a small price to pay.

[hfojvt]

6. then if you combine that with "poverty profiling"

it makes for very regressive taxation. Who is more likely to get pulled over for a seatbelt violation or a broken tail-light? The "important" person in the nice car or the poorer person in the old beater?

[BR_Parkway]

7. In NC $5 of all "court costs" go to the police retirement fund* - if your

401K tanks and you could build it back up by writing more tickets, wouldn't most people? It's a system flaw that's never been addressed properly in the state. There's always been a correlation between down months on the markets and up months on the number of tickets issued. IIRC, this info was documented back when NC was tracking ticketing due to court cases involving a much higher percentage of people ticketed for "driving while black" back in the late 80's & early 90's.

(*the general fund for retirement of policemen/women, not into any individuals)

[4_TN_TITANS]

8. Don't break the laws?

Works for me, haven't been pulled over in years.

[Tesha]

10. And you can predict when your brake-light bulbs will burn out! (NT)

[rvablue]

9. I've already seen this here in VA, many, many more people being pulled over. n/t

[liberalhistorian]

11. Well, duh, what a shocker. And in other news,

the sun rises in the morning and lawn grass is generally green. And, oh yeah, this just in, it actually snows in South Dakota in winter!!!!!

[Auggie]

12. If this thread can help one DUer from getting an unwarranted traffic citation

then it's worth posting.

Besides, it's news to me.

[RB TexLa]

13. Here they give seatbelt tickets to people who are wearing their seatbelts

They just tell them "It'll be your word versus my word, who do you think the judge is going to believe?"

[recoveringrepublican]

14. Was just reading the other day in the St. Pete Times that legislators in Florida

want to increase fines also. Most of them were by $10. Couldn't find the St. Pete Times link, but here is the Miami Herald

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics/florida/story/846381.html

[ColbertWatcher]

15. I thought all the cops were in Iraq. n/t

[Zing Zing Zingbah]

16. This is happening in my city too (in Maine)

We've been ticketed for parking on our own yard, but not in the direction of traffic. I live on road that gets very little traffic by the way. We got them to get rid of this one, but they ticketed us a few weeks ago for parking over night in front of our own house and we had to pay for that one. Apparently the city bans overnight parking on any city road in the winter, but we were not aware of this until they gave us the ticket. There aren't any signs that say this. You'd think the city could have mailed us something to warn us. I think the point was not make the over night parking ban well known so they could get more money ticketing people for parking in front of their own houses. I swear we've parked along the side of the road over night last winter and never got a ticket once.

[TheKentuckian]

17. "Could" nothing. IS is where its at on this.

that is exactly what is going on and they prey upon those in beaters or older vehicles. My boss' tags are old as his car but that Lexus doesn't get stopped but I've been pulled over like four times over a few days past due, once in route to the clerk's office.

The entire legal system is mostly just a revenue scam. Don't believe me? Do a little boning up on private prisons or even crime prevention, which doesn't happen other than some drug raids. No one wants murderers, rapists, and armed robbers running around causing mayhem but most of the people incarcerated are in for vice or petty theft (while greedy fat cats chill in luxury apartments). Neither of which is usually a valid reason to spend 20-30k housing someone, while taking them out of the productivity loop which stupidly adds to the rest of our tax burden.

The crime is that Americans are so fear driven that we let this protection scam continue. Police are as useless as overdraft protection on Bill Gates' checking account. We pay for the privilege of the air of security and not much more other than the hope of state sponsored vengeance.