Has the enforcement of traffic violations changed over the years?

[HOUSTON RICK]

As stated it is all about the money. Safety may be a welcome by product. They make few bones about that in Ohio. In Reading and Lockland, Ohio, you practically have to get out and push your car to avoid speeding even on primary roads. They are few spots that are not 25 mph. They have locations where the speed limit is dropped 5-10 mph for 50 yards some on secondary roads solely for the purpose of increasing revenue. There are even sometimes indented curbs for the police car to wait in. Elizabethtown Ohio has a well known speed trap on a highway where the reduced speed sign is posted behind plants and cannot be seen - unless you know it is there. Whatever else may be true on the side, it is all about the money.

 

[mrcvs]

Another problem where I live is the density of cops. State, county, and local. Why? Seems like too many types needing to generate revenue. I don't generally speed, but I have always been bothered when I see a cop sitting at the bottom of a hill nearly fully hidden from view. I don't feel that a "gotcha" approach should be what's enforced. Sure, if the cop is driving around and notes a violation, that's one thing. But to sit and prey...I don't need my driving monitored.

Others have said it's about attitude. I was polite and admitted I didn't come to a complete stop. Still got cited. Puts you in a no win situation.

What's the point in going to court? Last time I went, I had to pay court costs on top of the fine.

Growing up, I used to respect cops, I thought they were there to make society a better place. Now, I don't necessarily disrespect them, but, since it seems to be all about revenue, I no longer have a healthy respect for them, either. Sad, really.

And the fine, while not crippling, wasn't the slap on the hand it should have been, either, if I even should have been cited.

It has gotten such that it's all about the revenue, I think--look at DUI's. I think they have purposely lowered the limit as it generates a huge amount of revenue. I used to go out and have 3 beers in a little over an hour. After hearing from others, that ended. Now a beer, a coke, then another beer. Makes you even question if you can even split a bottle of wine with your wife.

 

[S-W4EVER]

You should have seen how negative things were when we had to enforce the 55 MPH Speed Limit on the Interstate Highway System. Most of the people stopped accused us of being revenuers because everyone knew the freeways were designed for 65-70 MPH and the Feds threatened to withhold Federal Funds if we didn't get compliance (and they would monitor speeds to see if we were doing our jobs).

My agency taught us to not write "attitude pinches", a nice person with excellent communication skills can be just as dangerous as anyone else.

Now that I'm retired, I really try to obey all traffic laws. It's cheaper and I don't wanna feel like a hypocrite.

 

[Old Corp]

In regards to an officer being stationed at or near the bottom of a hill.....
If it's any sort of residential area at all, he may very well be responding to residents complaints of speeding. Have done that many times, although I usually found a less obvious location to set up.
In so doing, I usually allowed up to ~20 mph over the posted limit and still wrote them about as fast as I could set back up.

When you're driving double the posted limit then the 'I was going downhill" thing kinda goes out the window.

Many remarks about 'revenue'.
In this state, the agency nor town, city, county etc receives nothing from traffic enforcement.
Fines go to the school system (state) and a smaller portion goes to AOC - Administrative Office of the Courts. So the whole 'you must be out to make money' idea is a falsehood and misconception.

 

[Muss Muggins]

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?

I picked this post to respond to, although I could have picked any of the posts regarding revenue and traffic tickets.

In Missouri, following the Ferguson debacle, city court revenue underwent a massive review. For those unfamiliar with the St. Louis area, the city of St. Louis is its own county. The history of the St. Louis City Police Department, which until recently had historically been run by a board of commissioners appointed by the Governor, is complicated, and fraught with many topics that we don't discuss here on this forum.

St. Louis County consists of 94 (I think, some have consolidated recently) separate municipalities, some no bigger than a couple square miles. Most have their own small police department and municipal court. Most touch boundaries, so that only isolated small patches of unincorporated St. Louis County are spaced about the area.

Now, to my point, many, if not most, of these municipalities were funding city government at about 50% to 75% with ticket revenue, including property violations and the big one, "Failure to Appear."

After Ferguson, the courts and the legislature combined to limit revenue from city courts to 12.5% of the budget within St. Louis County, and 20% outside the county. Many municipalities have since ditched or combined their municipal courts, and ditched their police departments as well. The St. Louis County Police Department has expanded to provide these services to cities via contracts, and there's another "cooperative" that has formed to provide police services to multiple municipalities in North County.

The ultimate goal is to combine St. Louis County and St. Louis City into a single political subdivision/entity, and there's a move to place the issue on a statewide ballot this fall.

That's a long way to go to say "Yeah, y'all are essentially right about this, at least in St. Louis County . . . "

 

[jejb]

Here in Ark, there is a law limiting cities to 30% of their budget funding deriving from traffic tickets on state or county highways. I've only been pulled over once in the 14 years I've been here. And I got the ticket I deserved.

 

[jscheck]

What LoboGunLeather said. Also, tho it may be the department's leaders demanding SOME sort of accountable action be taken for stats to show the city/county/state government that they're doing their jobs. I worked traffic and DWI enforcement for eight years. EVERY year there were "Click it or Ticket" drives, DWI enforcement drives, Speeding enforcement drives, etc. IMO it's about public perception as much as money.

 

[deadin]

I've only been ticketed once. It was for a California stop and right turn at a T intersection. I was 16 at the time. I now have a clean record (no stops) for the last 60 years........


Besides, my wife is Mayor of our little town and I have been informed (in no uncertain terms) that if I get a ticket, I will die.......

 

[joeintexas]

It's been my experience if I stay within the posted speed limits, stop at red lights and use turn signals I tend to get home everyday without a ticket. The only risk I run is getting ran over by some knucklehead during 70 in a 45 zone, pretty much a common event here. I've seen them mistake the Walmart parking lot for I-10!

 

[sigp220.45]

I used to work with a guy who was always complaining about getting stopped for speeding, even though he badged his way out of the tickets. He said he routinely set his cruise control for 10 over the limit.

I asked him wouldn't it be smarter to set the cruise for the limit and avoid all the wasted time getting pulled over? He just looked at me like I was the idiot.

 

[LVSteve]

I used to work with a guy who was always complaining about getting stopped for speeding, even though he badged his way out of the tickets. He said he routinely set his cruise control for 10 over the limit.

I asked him wouldn't it be smarter to set the cruise for the limit and avoid all the wasted time getting pulled over? He just looked at me like I was the idiot.

When is America going to become a developed country and stop this hick rubbish about LEOs badging their way out of tickets.

 

[Eagle 477]

I used to work the early morning shift that started at 5am. It was about a 45 minute ride on mostly rural roads with the posted speed limit of 45mph. there was a stretch of road that had several Bars and restaurant's that closed at 2am

When I first started the shift on this certain road I could count on getting stopped at least 3 days a week, same Officer and always for some nit picky reason, weaving in my lane, crossing the yellow line on a curve speeding. as soon as I rolled down my window he would ask where im going and where I was coming from giving the car the quick sniff. License and Registration, content I was not drinking he would just say be careful and off he would go. This happened so many time I kept my DL and Reg on the visor. After a few times he got to know my car and the Stops finally stopped...Except for a few times I had the wife's car or a loaner. Stopped at least a dozen times and Never ticketed. Guess DWI was a better money maker.

Rob

 

[NYlakesider]

When is America going to become a developed country and stop this hick rubbish about LEOs badging their way out of tickets.

Even if you lived as long as Methuselah, you will never live long enough to see that happen!

 

[LVSteve]

It has gotten such that it's all about the revenue, I think--look at DUI's. I think they have purposely lowered the limit as it generates a huge amount of revenue. I used to go out and have 3 beers in a little over an hour. After hearing from others, that ended. Now a beer, a coke, then another beer. Makes you even question if you can even split a bottle of wine with your wife.

Nope, it's about impaired drivers killing people or crippling themselves. I've had friends and coworkers in both camps and others who have lost family to drunk drivers.

Last Thursday (before St Patrick's Day weekend) all the local LE agencies had a DUI blitz. Even without any DUI checkpoints, they arrested 31 "drivers", and I doubt that was 10% of the likely targets.

 

[LVSteve]

Even if you lived as long as Methuselah, you will never live long enough to see that happen!

Maybe here that's true. In the UK pinching a cop for DUI, especially a senior one from another jurisdiction, is a badge of honour (sic ).

 

[sigp220.45]

When is America going to become a developed country and stop this hick rubbish about LEOs badging their way out of tickets.

Hahaha, it doesn't always work. There is an art to it.

 

[Golddollar]

If you want to read a documented account of how traffic law enforcement is used to the extreme as a revenue source, look up the history of the village of Linndale, Ohio. A village of less than 200 people, it has racked up $800,000.00 in a year from speeding tickets.

To give some credit to a town that eliminated overbearing traffic law enforcement, the City of Westminster, MD took out all but one of its red light cameras. It found that there was a big increase in rear end collisions as drivers were trying to avoid tickets for supposedly running a red light, so most of the red light cameras were removed.

 

[ladder13]

Big complaint, with women especially in this part of our great country, is cops getting up on your rear bumper at night and shutting off their lights, apparently to check the plate is illuminated.

 

[keith44spl]

Originally Posted by LVSteve View Post
When is America going to become a developed country and stop this hick rubbish about LEOs badging their way out of tickets.

On a similar note....When I worked the road,

There was one jurisdiction where folks could get their citation 'Fixed' faster than you could write one.

They jest had to vote the right way.


One time, I stopped this lit'l ol' lady for 75 in a 55....She told me she was late for church.

And she attended church with local sheriff's mother!!!

I sed, "Please slow down and be careful."

What's a feller to do, I ask you ???

.

 

[Golddollar]

Big complaint, with women especially in this part of our great country, is cops getting up on your rear bumper at night and shutting off their lights, apparently to check the plate is illuminated.

My car dealer is looking after me. I had one of the Batmobiles in the shop and they spotted that the license plate light bulb was burned out and went ahead and replaced it. I thanked them for doing that. Don't give them an excuse to stop you.