Nov 04
Megan MCardle wonders about traffic tickets as fund raisers for government during a recession:
Cracking down on trivial violations invades the safety zone that allows us to rub along without too much disrespect for the law.
So that got me wondering about my little slice of heaven… St. George, UT.
Citations given by the St. George Police Department:
May 1235
June 1201
July 1168
Aug 1163
So they range by 5%.
Problem… the population of our area during this period drops by about about a 1/3. You see it on the streets – less traffic, restaurants aren’t crowded, left turns are easy.
YET somehow… tickets remain about the same.
A cynic might suspect tickets are issued to fund the city not for public safety.
Do you know the reason I pulled you over sir?
November 4th, 2008 at 8:23 pm
Did cites drop by a third? You dont show stats for the rest of the year. If they are a third higher, you might be right. How many patrol officers are there? How many traffic cops? Motors? In a busy area patrol guys write very few cites. In St George…? I think the cops are not motivated by the money factor. It may be the culture of the department that writing a lot of cites gets you a rep as a hard worker, thus leading to better positions. If there isnt much crime, you have to do something to show you are busy. The problem is when there is a a lot of crime, and they are ignoring that in favor of writing cites. In Ontario, we pull over a lot of cars, but ma and pa taxpayer usually gets sent on his way without a ticket, but Joe dirtbag gets one or we find some reason to take him to jail.
November 5th, 2008 at 8:05 am
These were cites. The states for the rest of the year are remarkably similar, almost quoatish. (-:
4 motor officers, 45 sworn patrol officers.
In 1200 cites there were < 100 warnings.