I can't prove that cops are ticketing more in order to make up other revenue shortfalls, of course, but it certainly seems true from anecdotal evidence. This raises a larger question: what to cut, and what taxes to raise, when recession hits? States could avoid having to deal with this problem by building up reserve funds during the good years, but that's so obviously ridiculous that we won't talk about it.
To state the obvious, it is hard to cut spending during a recession--in some ways, harder than during a boom. In good times, your laid off state workers can find jobs. Now, no matter how useless their particular job may be, there will be outcry if you axe them. Similarly, states find it easier to play around with things like speeding fees than to raise taxes.
But it's not like speeding tickets are countercyclical; that money hurts as much as money taken out of the income tax. And while it is politically easier to step up enforcement of rules no one has ever heard of than to have an onerous debate about the budget, it is corrosive to civil society to make people feel that they can be randomly and unfairly hit up for extra cash. The nature of modern American law is such that no one can know, or obey it, fully; things like stop sign waits and emergency vehicle passage vary from state to state, and time to time, so that no one ever knows exactly what the law is. Cracking down on trivial violations invades the safety zone that allows us to rub along without too much disrespect for the law.
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"I cant prove..."
Sure you can. I'm sure ticket revenues are public record.
Totally anecdotal...I drove I-95 roundtrip from Fredericksburg to Richmond on Saturday. I'm not exaggerating when I say I saw at least 8-10 cars pulled over each way, and at least that many more state troopers laying in wait in the median.
That said, they did not seem to be bothering anybody doing the typical 5-10 mph over the speed limit.
Nobody knows what the law is as regards stop signs and speed limits?
What ambiguity is there in a BIG RED SIGN that says 'STOP' ?
Likewise for the 'SPEED LIMIT XY MPH' - that seems pretty clear.
Now, if you wanted to talk about where a right on red is permitted - and where it isn't - certainly, that's foggier. But stop signs and speed limits?
Mack, have you seen that video where some students got on a freeway and filmed themselves actually going the speed limit in all lanes? It created a huge backup that the highway clearly was not designed to have in normal usage. No, they don't actually expect you to obey the speed limits. The only possible explanation for them is to keep you in limbo.
And Megan_McArdle wasn't claiming that stopping is non-obvious. Her complaint was about 3-seconds vs. 5-seconds of wait time required. Completely ridiculous rule distinction. I've never seen a stop sign that specified the stop time.
In Texas, the new law about emergency vehicles (either leave, or go 20mph under the speed limit in, any lane adjacent to an emergency vehicle with its lights on) was pretty well-publicized, so no complaint from me. However, when there are accidents, it just begs people to be rubberneckers.
Also, I don't know if there's a law that says that if someone is being a #@*$% and blocking up the passing lane without passing, you're required to get past them at the first opportunity and then slow down enough to let all the angry drivers *finally* get a chance to pass them ...
But if there is, I'm obeying it :-)
Mack,
If you've had the opportunity to drive through many states and local jurisdictions, you'd know that enforcement of posted speed limits varies greatly. The staties near Moscow, TN where my grandmother lived will pull you over for +2. Same with Fayetteville, TN. I've blown by cops/staties in KY, TN, VA, AL, IN, IL, and others at +15 and not been pulled over.
However, I am wholly unaware of a need to stop at a stop sign for more than "a complete stop". I've never heard of a 5-second waiting time.
This is why I (semi-seriously) would be in favor of corporal punishment for traffic violations instead of fines.
If you get pulled over for 80 in a 75, and fined $200, you figure that the local government is looking for money, creating a great disrespect for the law. But if the only punishment were five lashes, you would probably be more likely to believe that they're actually worried that 80 is dangerously fast and that you are being punished to protect both yourself and others.
By declaring any punishment other than fines and jail to be cruel-and-unusual, we've created an environment where governments have a strong incentive to create as many non-jailable offenses as possible.
do PD's really ticket more toward the end of the month? If so, then would it be safe to say they're doing so to meet a quota?
"It created a huge backup that the highway clearly was not designed to have in normal usage. No, they don't actually expect you to obey the speed limits. The only possible explanation for them is to keep you in limbo."
When I think of "backup", I think about congestion (i.e. stopped traffic, moving below the speed limit, et cetera). I don't think everyone observing the speed limit causes backup. The primary cause of backups are lane merges, IIRC.
States could avoid having to deal with this problem by building up reserve funds during the good years, but that's so obviously ridiculous that we won't talk about it.
Maybe, but why can't they run deficits? I'm aware a lot of state constitutions don't permit deficit-financing, but, isn't this a bad idea?
I obviously think that creating debt over the long term is very bad idea. But if a state's finances balance out over the course of the business cycle, I don't see the harm. I do see the harm in slashing services and delaying capital projects during a recession, however.
If you get pulled over for 80 in a 75, and fined $200, you figure that the local government is looking for money, creating a great disrespect for the law. But if the only punishment were five lashes, you would probably be more likely to believe that they're actually worried that 80 is dangerously fast and that you are being punished to protect both yourself and others.
Along similar lines, I've always thought the proper to do fines would be to have the violators pay in cash and then physically destroy it. That removes the perverse incentives when governments profit, and if my macro is correct has no net economic impact. (The loss to the violator is balanced by the gain to everyone else whose dollars are now worth very slightly more).
I'm calling BS on this stop sign wait thing. I've passed driving tests in three states and each time the law was "a complete stop".
RE: Speed Limits.
See Taleb, Black Swans, et al
In 2004 the Year of Four Hurricanes left local governmments in Florida strapped for cash. Suddenly there were cops out ticketing people everywhere. I got popped twice in a month, although I got out of one ticket because they hadn't replaced the (lower) speed limit sign that had been knocked down by Jeannie. I should also note that in both cases the policeman did not even bother to check up on my license: he simply stood there and wrote the ticket as quickly as he could, apparently in a hurry to catch even more people.
Also, the State of Florida has figured out a way to hone in on the extra cash insurancce companies might otherwise rake in: if you don't have other points on your license you can take an online drivers improvement course with a test and the ticket will not show up on your record to the insurers. The test is absurdly easy to pass, but the course is ridiculously expensive, about $150, paid to the state.
And while it is politically easier to step up enforcement of rules no one has ever heard of than to have an onerous debate about the budget, it is corrosive to civil society to make people feel that they can be randomly and unfairly hit up for extra cash.
Uh, this doesn't feel much different from deciding that people no longer need to be taxed on their income from foreclosure. Who pays the difference? Me. That feels pretty damn random and unfair.
I don't understand why anything the government does is corrosive of "civil society." My church, my employer, the college club, my genealogical society--none of those organizations randomly and unfairly hits me up for cash. The fact that the government of Virginia might do so would, I suppose, weaken my faith in the Commonwealth of Virginia as the fount of justice, if I had that faith, but it has nothing to do with civil society.
One has to be a very strange libertarian to identify the government of Virginia with either civil society or the fount of justice.
In a rare moment of transparency the government in Arizona flatly states the new traffic cameras on highways are being installed to balance the budget. Quota $100M per year.
The car owner just pays the citation mailed to him. No record is kept. So the wealthy can speed if they wish without losing their license or increasing their insurance rates.
But if you get the speeding ticket from an actual human officer the penalties can be severe. You lose your license for the very first ticket over, I think, 85mph.
And at some velocity you go directly to jail.
I'm friends with a Virginia state trooper. He's told me in the past that all traffic fines in VA go into a special fund for schools (books n stuff). Money is fungible and all, but the mechanism for translating tickets into general revenues (at least in VA) is not as direct as many suppose.
Also this last weekend was Halloween - a typical big drinking weekend, so it makes sense from a safety perspective to have more cops out than normal.
I can't prove that cops are ticketing more in order to make up other revenue shortfalls, of course, but it certainly seems true from anecdotal evidence.
They don't call her McFacty for nothing!
I believe that this will is a trend that will continue to get worse for the average citizen. The reality is that most counties, cities, and states have not addressed the growing obligations to their retired workers. Like the auto and airline industries, they have over committed during the boom years and waited far to late to adjust their business models. Toss the revenue cuts that most of these institutions are facing and you are left with trying to recover that money the easiest way you can without raising taxes. Parking/traffic tickets, Airport taxes, Hotel Taxes...
Um, yeah, the police ticket to quotas. This is a revelation?
But this deserves a response:
States could avoid having to deal with this problem by building up reserve funds during the good years, but that's so obviously ridiculous that we won't talk about it.
Yeah. Well, as it happens, in my state (Oregon), the Republicans managed to get a constitutional amendment added which MANDATED that any budget surplus be mailed out to each taxpayer -- the "kicker". This, regardless of what sort of fiscal clouds might be on the horizon. And, yes, my state cannot by law run a deficit, either. So, no "rainy day fund," but plenty of suffering come the rainy day.
And for the last ten years, state Republicans have been running on this issue: "Do you want to let the state keep the surpluses, or can you spend that money better yourself!?@!"
And, man, does that $128 check come in handy in my household! Far better than paying for some slackjawed 6th grader's textbook, let me tell you...
I have a question about the hostess's proposal. I don't doubt that ticket revenue has gone up. But has it gone up specifically because the economy is bad? As a revenue generator, traffic tickets are weak aren't they? I've never heard anyone say tickets are great revenue. In fact I've heard that lottery sales are a better generator of revenue.
Man, you know the hard times are here when white girls start getting traffic tickets for completely arbitrary reasons.
It's so unfair.
sounds like it's time to remove 'public' roads to me. It wasn't exactly a brilliant idea in the first place; and now it's become the most obvious form of government; a pyramid scheme.
"In good times, your laid off state workers can find jobs."
I dispute the assumption that state workers are ever laid off. In good times, more are hired. In bad times, there is a freeze in hiring, but never lay offs. I mean, they ARE unionized, you know.
One item you all are missing is that with any moving violation, you can bet your auto insurance rates will go up. Dramatically. For years. So that $75 speeding ticket for +2 can cost you ine excess of $1000 in the long run. Sure the municipality gets some of the cash (in NY there are admin fees tacked on to the ticket so the state gets a cut, so the $50 ticket becomes $75), but your costs are far more than the fine and the lost court time.
Yeah, well, in NY once I was pulled over for "running" a red light (it wasn't) at 5:30 AM in a little podunk town where the cop had nothing better to do.
I went to court, pleaded and paid a $50 "parking" ticket (the town gts to keep ALL of the fines if it was not a moving violation). If it was a state cop, no way it could be pleaded (I think) because of the revenue loss to the state. The only way I avoided having to go to traffic school was that I had a certificate showing I went 6 months earlier (NY has a safe driver program; if you take the course, you get a 10% reduction in the liability portion of your insurance).
Imagine, traffic school for a parking ticket. Because NY get a cut of THAT (as admin fee) as well.
I did learn that it is a point of NY law that you can not be ticketed if you are +5 or LESS. There is a court ruling that dismisses the ticket. The cops know this and do not bother to ticket if you keep it to +5.
It is one HUGE scam.
Traffic tickets are a scam
"Cracking down on trivial violations invades the safety zone that allows us to rub along without too much disrespect for the law." That for me is key (although some comments above have excellent ideas, new to me, with which I also agree: great thread!). The respect for the law --I'm a lawyer, sorry-- is the glue necessary for society to function at all. Just as character is what you do when nobody's looking. If the cops tag us for trivia, they send us the message that we are merely part of a game they run and own, and that the exercise of our judgment about what is safe and proper is not to be rewarded but punished with "gotcha." Result? I mean, besides the financial ding and the points and the anger? A lingering sense of disenfranchisement from what should be a work jointly done with government: the work of sharing the road safely. It is infantilizing and alienating and, as Megan says, that's deeply corrosive.
That said, I kinda like the suggestion that the cops take the speeder's cash and burn it on the spot. Could become a nice little ritual, with him fishing a folding barbeque out of the cruiser.
My uncle graduated from the CHP academy in the 1950's and was assigned to his new precinct (terminology my own). The new grads who had arrived were given an orientation lecture from one of the sergeants. He was told in blunt terms, (and I loosely paraphrase 2nd hand and from memory), 'I know what you learned in the academy, but your job here is to write tickets.'
Oh yeah. Did anyone ever notice what happened to Clinton's bill to add 100,000 cops? Most of them were hired to write tickets, enforce seat belt/cell phone laws, and run DWI checkpoints.
Way to take a bite out of violent crime.
Im our area there was a article in the newspaper about eight or ten months ago informing us that several of the local State Police barracks had received one million in special funding to pay officers overtime. This was expressly for the purposes of increased traffic enforcement. Perhaps in a ill-convieved attempt to justify the increased spending, they noted that they epxected to get eight to ten million back in fines. Nice to know they've found way to squeeze another few million out of the locals. Traffic enforcment insn't just a source of revenue, it's a very lucrative investment. We will be seeing alot more enforcement everywhere until sombody finds a way to remove the cash incentive for overzealous enforcment through the courts.
Respect for a huge mass of self-contradictory and arbitrary law, arbitrarily enforced, is not possible or deserved.
I have a good friend who is a retired county sheriff. Before that, he was a Texas Ranger. You'd never know it to meet him today though, because he's a musician now. Anyway, he doesn't like, "the way the game is played" today, and is glad he's out of law enforcement. This is a big problem: As the laws have become increasingly ridiculous over the past several decades, honorable men have increasingly stayed away from law enforcement. As a result, many LEOs today are punks and thugs, a significant percentage of whom have criminal records (It's around 25% in some major metro areas).
It's difficult to take any lamentations about eroding respect for the law seriously anymore, especially when most of the laws on the books today are exactly opposite of the intended purpose of law - the good of society - but rather are just designed to rip citizens off and enrich lawyers. But, when you let lawyers make the law, judge the law, prosecute the law, and defend from the law, you can hardly expect any other result: You design a racket, you get racketeers.
I had one newly minted Texas DPS officer attempt to dress me down for entering a parking lot too fast a year or so ago. Of course, the real problem was that I drive a $40K truck he was envious of. His arms were completely covered with tattoos (Is there ANYTHING that screams, "NO CLASS!" as loudly as tattoos do?). Anyway, that's the kind of garbage you're increasingly likely to encounter in uniform today. Pity.
Jerry Pournelle has an excellent term for the general phenomenon: Anarcho-Tyranny. More than enough laws / rules / regs to constitute a tyranny, but so arbitrary both in concept and enforcement that no one is sure what the actual rules are, contributing to an insecure citizenry. Under an Obama Administration, expect this to be taken to new heights.
The laws they tend to enforce are generally inefficient and unsafe too.
If you don't like getting traffic tickets, become a cop.
Law Enforcement Officers are extended professional courtesy for everything, from speeding to DUI.
And if you read forums like Cop Talk long enough, you can come across all sorts of wonderful rationalizations for it.
If you really want to get angry and/or depressed, read the Police Professionalism stories at Radley Balko's blog.
I wonder what would happen if everyone drove the speed limit and obeyed every trivial little traffic law for one month? I know, who can drive that slow?
I suspect we'd see a tightening of the laws to repair the lost revenue streams
In our town the population varies markedly from winter to summer. Trouble is... tickets don't:
http://www.kennelson.com/newblog/?p=774
And I can attest having been pulled over plenty of times while a passenger... having a cop as the driver is the BEST way to avoid a ticket.
Anecdotally, the police have been posted in Fairfax, Virginia in certain locations 4 out of 5 weekdays for several months now. The budget, however, is some $9 million short, so I don't think there's any real chance of making up the difference that way. Any locality which thinks it can close that kind of gap by the selective taxation of violators will find that it fails because a) violators will stop or avoid known locations after a time, and b) tickets just don't generate that much revenue overall.
A more interesting secondary effect is this: as big, important laws are increasingly disobeyed by the executive branch (immigration, human rights, disclosure of public records, etc.) and otherwise law-abiding citizens face random and irregular enforcement of traffic laws and other petty laws, unrest, if not outright anger, will increase. Morally, why should one be compelled to obey the requirements of the tax laws if the government itself does not do its' job and enforce immigration laws? Why should the people who worked hard, saved money, lived within their means and didn't lie on loan applications now be taxed and have their money involuntarily donated to the compulsive gamblers on Wall Street? Why in the world are the police hassling motorists when there are real crimes like murder, arson, rape and assault still open on their books?
Sooner or later, if some people don't play by the rules, the rest of the people will decide not to play by the rules. We either have laws which are universally applied or we don't. The current arbitrary enforcement cannot be sustained.
I would have thought that someone by now would have pointed out that a very large number of states have created budget stabilization (rainy day) funds into which revenue is placed by formula during economic expansions for use in difficult times (recessions). The problem is that state lawmakers underestimate the size of financial problems during recessions or assume that there will never, ever be another recession and don't get enough money into these funds to cover the recession problems. Anyway, thought you should know that the funds do exist.
I've noticed it too here in MA - where budget woes are forcing Cadillac Deval (aka Obama's mini-me) to slash budget - we may also have a ballot driven cancellation of the income tax.
Whereas before you'd catch a break ("you were going 90, but I wrote it for 80") - it's all very expensive now.
Question: At what point should you stop when the light turns yellow?
Answer: It depends on how much revenue the cop watching from the adjacent parking lot is charged with raising.
One more thing. In regards to states creating funds for future costs (which a recession is) how are those pension plans doing?
Take a look at the federally mandated CAFRs sometime. This stands for Comprehensive Annual Financial Report. These are monies that do not show up "on the books" and in many states is many billions of $. Of course, taxpayers are kept in the dark or pillage would become more difficult.
Want to stop the cops from writing tickets? It's easy...
Just make sure that every time you get a ticket for *anything* you not only show up in court for arraignment, but demand a trial. It doesn't have to be a jury trial - Just ask for a bench trial.
On the trial date, show up with a list of seventy-five questions for the officer. They can be questions about anything you think pertains to the case, but the list should be long. The judge may not allow them, and the prosecution (if you're lucky enough to avoid kangaroo court) may object, but you'll get a lot of leeway for being pro se.
An added bonus here is if you can catch the officer in a lie or misstatement you get the satisfaction of watching him squirm on the stand while the prosecutor intervenes and/or the judge dismisses the case quickly to avoid perjury charges.
However, it doesn't matter if you win or lose, your objective is to take up their time exercising your constitutionally-protected right to a fair and speedy trial. If you were going to pay the ticket anyway, take a chance on court because you *might* luck out and win.
In any case, the actual benefit to society is that within weeks the system would be so clogged the courts would demand that the cops stop writing tickets. It's either that or they'll start trying to pass laws saying that the right to a fair trial no longer applies to a traffic ticket.
I've been doing this for years and while I'm not a serial offender - In fifteen years I've had five tickets - I have only paid for one. In three of the "winning" cases, the charges were dismissed due to "officer error" (while on the witness stand) and in one the court couldn't fufull my request for a speedy trial.
The one case I lost was a kangaroo court where the officer was allegedly acting as prosecutor. I tried to argue against this, but was told that the law in the state allowed for it. Even then, knowing there was no way I could win, I exacted my pound of flesh by forcing the officer to the stand and subjecting him to the full battery of questions.
It was quite interesting to watch him squirm even as the judge was cutting off my access to areas where he could have perjured himself. It was so bad that the rest of the people in the courtroom were laughing out loud every time the judge said he didn't have to answer.
When I said "defense rests" after forty-five minutes of relentless questioning, the cop actually said "about time" loud enough for everyone to hear.
I lost, but I paid my $150 fine with a smile on my face.
Get a ticket, go to court. It's far more satisfying than voting and probably ten times more productive.
Highway speed enforcement has pretty much always been about revenue.
Even with local roads you've often got speed limits intentionally set below what traffic engineering standards would deem appropriate just so the local PD can crank up enforcement on that stretch any time the piggy bank is looking a little bare.
A couple of years ago CT actually had a billboard that put it very explicitly. It said, in no uncertain terms that the state needed money and would be out to give lots of speeding tickets, so drive slow.
Anecdotal only in the sense that you are getting the story from me. The billboard was real, and I do not seriously consider the possibility that the idea for the billboard may have come out of thin air.
Nick:
In California, if you go to court on a traffic ticket and lose, you are liable for not only the ticket itself, but court fees of 170% of the bail amount. Thus, the typical $180 ticket now becomes a whopping $486. If you are going to waste the court's time, you better have a damn good case.
Oh, and as CHP officers get overtime for going to court on traffic tickets, they are more than happy to spend all day there.
Ohio is famous for heavy enforcement. Look out if you are traveling on interstates on the 28, 29 30 or 31st of the month. It certainly appears there are end of the month pushes - why? The big change lately has been the appearance of locals on interstates - especially galling are local PD on I90 when there is no exit in the municipality. Famous case is Linwood - 300 yds of I71 between the airport and downtown Cleveland. Its the major income for the city. Ohio Supreme ct says its OK, everyone does it now. EArly preview of the police state.
I expressed myself on this topic a few years ago:
http://miriamsideas.blogspot.com/2005/10/sinister-little-town.html
Nothing has changed in New Jersey. I went from Exit 2 to Exit 8A on a recent Thursday and saw 3 motorists pulled over during my trip. On the way back,only two.
These cops are nothing but vultures.
Body piercings
Use of the word "class".
Probably a by product of construction projects, but anyone else notice traffic light timing getting messed up. This goes beyone tin-foil hat territory, but do you think municipalities could go as far as to encourage people to break the law? If you'll probably hit a red light if you don't speed, why not speed an hit less lights?