Has the enforcement of traffic violations changed over the years?

[Old TexMex]

We allow golf carts to be rented and driven on city streets. (More golfcarts for rent than registered voters, and several of the rental agencies are owned by a city council member) Only tourists rent golf carts. They often let their little children drive them,don't fasten seatbelts, drive with open containers, run stop signs and are incapable of travelling over 15 mph.
When local people complain about this goofy behavior, we're told that "well, tourism is important, so we need to be very tolerant and nice."
Ah well, it is an island......

 

[Walkingwolf]

IF you intend on taking tickets to court, be polite, but do not admit guilt. Keep conversation to a minimum with only information related to your ID. Do not even talk about the weather or the latest football game. Keep it simple and short.

I got a DOT ticket a about 13 years ago, was polite, but did not admit any guilt. Officer was polite, and we both told the judge we were polite to each other. I won the case in short order once explaining to the judge my side of the story.

If an officer asks you how fast you were going, at the most reply "Yes I do" but nothing more. That is being polite but not admitting guilt.

 

[16thVACav]

Carrying your badge in your wallet sounds like a good idea.

I think I've still got my Captain Midnight badge around here somewhere ………….

 

[pawngal]

Fortunately I haven't been interviewed by any LEO for a few years. I've gotten a few tickets over the years, all were deserved. Years ago I was stopped quite frequently, most of those would be considered sexual harassment now days. Took a little shaking farther up the tree to get it stopped.

I do agree that much of it is the revenue stream.

 

[LVSteve]

In the Vegas valley the rules are simple. Metro/North Town/Henderson will give warnings. NHP does not.

In the OP's case, he was wearing a ball cap while driving, which merits a ticket whatever else you are doing, but I have a cultural problem with hats indoors and in cars, so you can ignore me.

 

[Doug M.]

The reality is more complex, and as usual, LE managers (few are leaders) have done an awful job of explaining that. Look at the all the false discourse about "mass incarceration", use of force, etc. It really gripes me.

It took me a few years, but I learned to drive in a manner compliant with the traffic laws and haven't been stopped or cited for so long I really can't recall.

In some states, tickets generate significant revenue; here they do not, and are closer to a money loser than revenue. I started in LE in a state in which the revenue mattered, but I did not write chippy stuff. I allowed 9 over at the point which people came into town, and because of a railroad bridge, one had to WORK to be going that fast. I could easily write a ticket 4-5 times an hour. I wrote several for 20+ over; some were for a lot more than the speed limit outside of town. When I left there, they had a little kid killed in a crash by such a driver.

In the City in which I reside, the local agency had a Chief for several years who really discourage enforcement, and it showed. A few years ago, I regularly saw one nitwit who drove all summer with his studded tires on and never got caught. One officer I know had his tint meter taken away because he actually used it. The driving behavior in general is abysmal - one real annoyance to me now is the number of people I see who don't have their headlights on in fog, on gloomy days, etc. Traffic safety is a big deal - crashes are one of the most significant forms of easily preventable death (almost all are homicides, most criminal). A disproportionate number are caused by people who are already suspended/revoked; one of the best ways to catch them is the most are just crummy drivers and commit. lot of minor offenses.

Also: vigorous traffic enforcement was shown in a study in the mid 70s to be the best single manner of finding and catching criminals and reducing criminal activity. I have looked repeatedly and never found any study coming to a different conclusion.

Are there places that are out of control? Sure. When I was trucking, Stringtown OK was well known. I still remember that, over 25 years later.

 

[Old cop]

I've been stopped twice since retiring in '97. Once by the state police for going too slow on a country road (35 in a 45) who wanted to make sure I was okay so no ticket. Last summer I got caught by the county going 68 in a 55 zone (readily admitted my guilt) and again got a warning. I never showed my retired credentials in either case but I know I show up as retired LEO w/LEOSA in their computer. The county officer said she was not going to issue a ticket b/c of my clean driving record and never mentioned my retired status. Did I deserve a ticket in the last case? I sure did so maybe I was lucky enough to get the right cop.

 

[Bubba2014]

In our location it was standard policy to give drivers a minimum of 10 mph over the speed limit before we stopped them. In S.C any speeding violation over 10 mph is a 4 point violation. Most officers would write the citation for driving less than 10 mph to reduce the fine and the points associated with the citation, if the driver has a decent attitude. No one likes being stopped by the police, but if the offender is polite and has a good attitude it will probably turn out much better. On the main highways a lot of officers would give drivers 15 mph over the limit before they would stop them, and they could still write as many citations as they wanted to write! Also, the fines in most states are determined be the state legislature, not by the officer or the local government.

 

[kwselke]

In the area of Houston I live in the regular HPD officers will not stop you for a traffic violation unless you do something really stupid. Houston has a special traffic patrol with cars that are lightly marked. When they come in they write-up red light runners so fast they do not even have time to check for speeders. I've been driving for over forty-five years and have been stopped and ticketed three times. I deserved the fines. The last time I was stopped was in 1980. At that time I decided to never get another ticket again and I have not. Sloppy driving is sloppy driving, learn to drive properly or pay the fines.

 

[dockmurgw]

My daughter is big on warnings...unless someone gets mouthy...or unless your a dirt bag junkie and the Trooper she is working with OD's, and has to be revived with 3 doses of Narcan while being rushed to the hospital, all because he was searching your car and removing your poison. Then you get a ticket before the judge lets you walk away. Yes, happened two nights ago.

 

[nachogrande]

PRO TRAFFIC CAMERA'S.

*IF* they are not fiddled with by shortening the yellow light time, focus on rolling right turns, or otherwise used to boost income thru fines. Let's face it, cops can't be everywhere and people are willfully blowing straight thru red lights or too old/senile/or distracted to notice & killing/injuring others. To pay for them, install them, then remove them??? Sounds like typical waste of taxpayer $. I have 3 black diamond intersections within 5 miles of home & wish there was a camera on each. Some of the less dangerous intersections had camera's & local towns were accused of monkeying around with the lights timing. A good IN THEORY proposition???

 

[mrcvs]

I get a sense from many of these posts it's all about revenue generation. I feel like I am taxed to death already and if you take that and multiply times millions of taxpayers that's a lot of money! And yet governments need to raise more revenue through fines. So, where does it all go?

 

[ImprovedModel56Fan]

Just to keep it balanced (?), or at least factual, which it probably already is, I came to MA about thirty years ago. I soon got a ticket written for only slightly less than what I was doing. Some years later, I got a ticket in VA for what I was doing. Other than that, not much. I still travel with the flow, meaning I often speed, but not conspicuously. I got a warning ticket a few years ago for speeding more or less in my own neighborhood, something I almost never do.

In short, I do NOT find traffic law enforcement more strict than previously.

YMMV.

 

[CH4]

I can't talk about how much revenue tickets generate in other states and jurisdictions, but in mine (California)it was actually very little - too many fingers in the pie and overtime for court and other overhead. Moreover, if traffic officers are doing their jobs, revenue from citations, especially on surface streets, should diminish over time due to less violators. Regardless, if you don't want to get pinched, don't commit traffic violations. I've been driving all sorts vehicles for 36 years, from motorcycles to pulling triples, and have never received a citation.

And for those defendants and defense attorneys that whine about CS pinches for license plate lights, air fresheners hanging from rearview morrors, no mud flaps, etc, pretext stops are a great way to catch bad guys. Many of my best arrests were from stopping dirtbag cars for CS violations. Yes, there're always exceptions, however, if you make sure you and your vehicle are squared away before you back out of the driveway your odds of getting pinched go down dramatically.

As a traffic officer and eventually CLEO I was never given a quota (illegal in most jurisdictions) or to meet minimum performance standards, I was allowed to write as many as I wanted.

 

[CalmerThanYou]

I posted last year about getting stopped for a 98% stop in a rural residential setting. I was intent on being very respectful, full yes sir treatment. I admitted doing a 98% stop, and volunteered my DL and CC card, just to be on the same page and polite. It was my local Village LEO so I figured 100% warning.
Of course I was wrong. Got the ticket. Which by the way turns into "Failure to Yield" So in addition to the fine and points I had to take a $98 online FTY course and pass which is a state thing I found out.
In the future the convo. will be short, I will not offer my CC, I will not admit guilt, and no matter what I will take the time to go to court. I will still be polite. Politely quiet.
So yes put me down for the income generator opinion.

 

[Golddollar]

Carrying your badge in your wallet sounds like a good idea.

I think I've still got my Captain Midnight badge around here somewhere ………….

I'll start carrying my Tom Mix Ralston Straight Shooters of America badge.

(How many of you know what I'm talking about?)

 

[Old Corp]

Retired in '08 from a pretty large municipal, state-capital department.
Our agency in corporate-speak 'went metric', and implemented 'performance based evaluations'.

That meant a couple of things - you WOULD produce quality work product in a volume commensurate with supervisor's expectations. If not, small merit increases and subsequent promotions would not be in your future.
At the time, city council had selected a retired NYPD woman as a Chief and she implemented a system called 'ComStat' where every officer, every unit, every division was broken down into numbers, pie charts, graphs and it was not uncommon to summon an officer or his supervisor into a large Command Staff ComStat meeting and have them summarily humiliated for 'poor numbers'.

This was to extract the very last drop of blood out of the understaffed turnip and save $$.
So - how many 'Officer Friendly' nod and a wink warnings got handed out would you guess?

Yes, I'm very glad to be retired.

 

[usmc2427765]

always remember, attitude is everything. The officer has discretion and will generally take attitude into consideration. It can be difficult to talk yourself out of a ticket, but very, very easy to talk yourself into one.

 

[Golddollar]

I get a sense from many of these posts it's all about revenue generation. I feel like I am taxed to death already and if you take that and multiply times millions of taxpayers that's a lot of money! And yet governments need to raise more revenue through fines. So, where does it all go?

There is no doubt that traffic laws are being used to shake down motorists as opposed to establishing traffic safety. In Montgomery County, MD, a school zone flasher was run in the middle of the night, long after school hours for the day. It was being actively ticketed, until a conservative radio show blew the whistle on it and the practice was stopped. A constant use of cruise control and looking like an unmarked police car has probably kept me out of trouble.

The town I live in had a reputation for being one of the worst speed traps around, because the entire town had a speed limit of 25 mph and the southern town limit was at the bottom of a hill with no warning of the drop in the speed limit. When I first moved there I routinely spotted town police sitting right at the town limit at the bottom of the hill. but one of the borough councilmen started raising a ruckus about the reputation the town was getting and the hardnosed traffic law enforcement seems to have stopped.

 

[Broke Hoss]

Is traffic enforcement a revenue? Yes, in some instances. I got a buddy in a small (3 man) department where everyone in town is either related or friends. He is often reminded that if he doesn't write the cites there is not enough money in the general fund for his salary.

I also know that I've seen a lot of carnage caused by something as simple as a "minor" traffic violation.

As for the complaints about "chicken poop" stops....OK City Bomber was contacted for a license plate violation; Olympic Bomber was a "suspicious subject dumpster diving; Son of Sam was ID'd through a parking ticket.

Yeah, catching little fish will often lead to bigger fish. Just the other night a car stopped for a wide right turn at 0230.....ended up with 8g of meth & a stolen pistol in possession of a convicted felon.