August 31, 2009
Financial Ramifications of Aggressive Traffic Enforcement
Rating: 0 Posted By: tripleB
Views: 19 Replies: 0
One common theme amongst posters in the extremely popular Best and Worst States To Live In Financially thread is discussion of level of aggressiveness of traffic enforcement as a negative towards living in certain areas.
One poster mentioned Massachusetts does not allow removal of points by taking traffic school. Many others noted high rates of issued tickets.
This is far from the forum to promote academic research topics, but I am curious see a study done on level of traffic enforcement and finances of a juresdiction. I would like to hope that we could show an inversely proportional relationship that could be shoved in local government’s face to tell them to have cops back off on mandatory ticket quotas and to promote issuance of non-fine warnings in most cases.
In a simple bi-variable example, imagine two adjacent towns. One with very high levels of traffic enforcement and another with very low levels. Assuming all else is equal, people will very clearly choose to live and shop in the town with less enforcement. I know very few people who enjoy getting photoradar tickets on a weekly basis in the mail and getting $200 tickets for jaywalking. It sounds absurd, but this is exactly what is happening in my current town. This 40 square mile town made $15 Million dollars in traffic light camera revenue last year. They have begun issuing $200 tickets to people who jaywalk across empty streets. Traffic light cameras are setup so several intersections are impossible to make left turns on a green-left signal without getting an automatic ticket due to a shortened turn signal time on a long distance turn.
Not only am I moving out of this city as soon as college is over, but I currently do ALL of my shopping in adjacent towns which have slightly less aggressive enforcement rates. I just dont feel safe with police purposely looking for an excuse to pull you over. It was made legal 2 months ago to give probable cause for a traffic stop and complete vehicle search if you have a license plate frame that even partially obstructs the state name by 1 millimeter. This is due to traffic-light cameras requiring a full state name for the automatic software to issue a ticket. Of course there arent any actual humans earning that $15 M annual revenue stream. So this law now gives officers full probable cause to detain you for hours and search your vehicle for a license plate frame that more than 95% of cars still have as issued by the dealership.
In other personal examples, I know Delaware has extremely aggressive enforcement on I95. I have NEVER stopped in Delaware for gas while making an east coast road trip. I want to do my 55 MPH limit and GTFO of the state that is known for aggressive enforcement and ticketing police officers. I’ll get my gas in maryland or new jersey.
Unfortunately with the economy as it is and government budget cuts, it seems like aggressive enforcement is the new form of taxation. Are there any areas of the country that are still reasonable with respect to traffic enforcement? Artificially lowering the speed limit and then ticketing everyone going 5 MPH over a limit lowered 15 MPH from what it should be, is not reasonable. Is there anything we can do to show lawmakers we are unhappy with what they are giving us?
Can anyone here play devils advocate and describe why some people might like aggressive enforcement? Perhaps older people who feel that people drive too “crazy” and “fast” and who have not yet been targeted by aggressive enforcement themselves?
By DealGuruMantra