Has the enforcement of traffic violations changed over the years?

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???
 
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?
 
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.
 
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.
 
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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.
 
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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.
 
mrcvs said:
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?
Click to expand...

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.
 
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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.
 
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.
 
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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.
 
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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.
 
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.
 
mrcvs said:
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?
Click to expand...

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 . . . "
 
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.
 
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.
 
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.......:eek:;)
 
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!:rolleyes:
 
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.
 
sigp220.45 said:
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.
Click to expand...

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

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.
 
NYlakesider said:
Even if you lived as long as Methuselah, you will never live long enough to see that happen!
Click to expand...

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 ;)).
 
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.
 
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.
 
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.
Click to expand...




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. ;):D


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 ??? :rolleyes:

.
 
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ladder13 said:
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.
Click to expand...

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.
 
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