So, being middle class, you consider yourself immune to the laws of society?
Good lord but you’re stupid. Seeing as we’re all about fighting ignorance here, I’ll give you a little lesson on Police Operations here in the good ol USofA
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First, in most police departments there are multiple divisions that attack crime on multiple levels, the patrol division, (most often the largest and most active) usually deals with the everyday stuff like traffic (there may be a sub-group that deals with only traffic enforcement) domestics, etc.
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Then there are detectives who solve crimes already committed and crime prevention bureaus (in larger departments) that try and prevent crimes from happening.
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Then you have specially trained officers who are tasked with addressing problems like drugs, illegal guns, auto theft, gangs and whatnot.
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Finally then you have the hut-hut boys, or SWAT or special response or whatever you choose to call them.
Now, on to revenue enhancement. Consider this, my daft friend; If it were only enhancing revenue, why would they give you a break if you got it fixed? Answer, they wouldn’t. It’s an incentive not to drive with broken equipment, period.
Consider further that in order for that ticket to be profitable at ANY margin the following must be true, the cost of the person writing the ticket, the cost of the person processing the ticket and all of the surrounding infrastructure that supports THEM, must cost less in the time it takes to handle that ticket, than you eventually paid.
To wit (and this is only an example):
The officer probably makes somewhere around $20 an hour (and if backup came to the stop, that’s another $20, which is a low estimate, btw) the clerk that will process that ticket makes somewhere in the neighborhood of $13. The dispatcher that dealt with the officer that made the initial traffic stop probably makes about $15. Now consider the cop who checked the fixed light, that’s another $20. Factor in all the benefits for all of those people, which we’ll say is about, $30 for that hour (which may be high, but for math’s sake, it’s a round number) Consider then the fuel to operate the squad car, the insurance on the car, the maintenance on the car and all of it’s associated systems (lights, computer etc) which again, I’m going to put at $20 for that hour.
That ticket, just on my simple math alone costs $137.00 to write, of which, you paid $58 (down from $78).
Your wife drove with defective equipment, the cop called her on it, you paid. It sucks, you bet, but so does your lack of knowledge and poor attitude toward the people who put their lives on the line for you, 7x24.
Live and learn, my friend.
I was going to come in here and point out how miniscule a portion of the budget fines are in most municipalities but I see that buttonjockey has already covered it.
This “Revenue Generating Fines are how they make the big moneys” meme has got to die already.
You’re right about your conclusion, but your analysis is off. Most of the costs you listed are fixed. Anyway, if you break the law in front of a cop, you should expect the cop to enforce the law. Warnings are nice, but that shouldn’t be the expectation.
If Judge Judy were here she’d say “Don’t pee on my leg and tell me it’s raining”
It boggles the mind that some people break the law and are literally bewildered at why they are in trouble for breaking the law. Driving is a privilege not a right. If you want to do it you’re going to have to follow the rules that have been laid out to keep everyone safe. Keep the car in adequate shape. You need TWO headlights so you don’t accidentally run over a girl scout. Everyone has to do this from Churchy O’Whiteyton to Druggy McMurderface.
I no longer drive (driving is for suckers) but when I did I got pulled over a few times. I got a rolling stop ticket and had to spend 8 hours on a saturday at Alive at 25. We got to play driving safety related charades. I’m a white rich bitch from the south, but as I sat there with my new ethnic friends I was moved by the knowledge that we were united, hand-in-hand, by the fact that we all drive like assholes.
I am this close to joining the LobMob.
I do. When I’m stopped at a light behind a container truck or other vehicle with a large and reflective surface, I look at my headlights and quickly check my blinkers. I also check my brake lights regularly.
And you, sir, are a colossal douchebag.
If you want to argue that there shouldn’t be traffic laws, that’s one thing. It’s a really foolish idea but it’s at least a debatable point. But the argument of the OP and some others here are that traffic laws are okay for other people but they feel they personally should have an immunity from them.
I drove around with a blown headlight for a couple of weeks, thinking it was no big deal. I fail to see how a driver would not notice it, personally, but that’s not the point. Anyway, I was driving back from Philly having dropped my son off, in the early evening one Sunday, and a few miles into the (unlit) Baltimore Washington Parkway the other bulb went out. Made for a hairy drive home.
I have no doubt I was significantly more dangerous to the overwhelming majority of fellow drivers than a crack dealer had ever been.
This is very true. I read a review recently in the NYT Book Review; an excerpt from an ex-junkie’s memoir related how he got clean and was driving somewhere with his father. It was the first time in years that he was driving in a car that didn’t have the “Check Engine” light on. It’s a legal excuse to verify that the driver and passengers are law abiding. However:
Given the computerized records that follow drivers and vehicles, and given that a headlight can go at any time, it does seem reasonable to simply offer a warning with a specified time for reparation before a fine is assessed. Maybe the OP’s energy and eloquence could be channeled in a more constructive direction, such as changing to this type of vehicular regulation?
Yeah, I know what you mean. That line cracked me the hell up!
And while I’m here, let me say this:
Both of you, **Loach ** and Don’t Call Me Shirley, actually make very good points, I think.
Don’t Call Me Shirely: You’re absolutely right–if the cop declined to ticket your wife for the greater offense, then it’s not cool that he ticketed her for a lesser, made-up offense, so I understand your anger.
However, Loach: You’re right, too. Several years ago, I was driving home to South Carolina for a brief New Year’s holiday, when I got busted by a NJ State Trooper going…well, forget how fast I was going (though I was…wait for it…safe in that I wasn’t weaving in and out of traffic, blah-blah-blah), but I was undeniably in excess of the speed limit.
Cop comes up, asks me if I knew how fast I was going, and I told him yes, I did. (Why bullshit him, especially when I’ve never been a convincing liar?) He takes my info, goes back to his car, comes back to me, and tells me that he won’t cite me for speeding (and he explained how many points that would’ve cost me), but that he had to cite me for something. He wound up citing me for, IIRC, lack of proof of insurance and failure to wear a seatbelt. Granted, the car was a rental, and I was most definitely wearing my seatlbelt, as I always do. It took me less than a nano-second to do the mental math before I said, “Oh, okay.”
Cost? Seventy-some-odd dollars and no points on my license.
I didn’t dig the made-up offenses, but I would’ve dug much, much less the more expensive ticket and points on my license.
And, Loach, maybe you’ll be kind enough to answer this for me: Why did the cop feel the need to cite me for something made-up in lieu of the real offense? Just a punitive measure so that I’d have something to think about, yes?
When I was 16 I almost got into a head-on collision with someone because his left headlight was out. I was waiting to turn left off of a very busy street, and this guy’s one working headlight was hidden by the car in front of him (he was probably following too closely also.) I didn’t see his working headlight until the car in front of him passed me, at which time I was almost already in his lane. Scared the crap out of me; I still watch for this 17 years later.
I meant that I failed to see how a driver would not notice that his or her own headlight was blown. I quite understand how it can make you much harder for someone else to see…
A burnt out headlight IS dangerous. You can’t see as well, which puts me in danger. That said, it is too bad that your state does not do fix-it tickets where the fine is waived if you fix it in a period of time.
45 in a 35 is also dangerous. The speed, if your community has competent traffic engineers around, is set based on safety issues. That means things like driveways, visibility, width of the road, road conditions in general, etc. When you go 10 over, you no longer can stop as fast. We have a 25 MPH road near our house that people like to speed on. They come up a small rise and sometimes have to brake hard because a kid is riding their bike, etc. The ONLY reason they have to brake hard is because they are going faster than 25. I WELCOME the cops who ticket there.
Why do they cops give out tickets? Because they work.
That fatal crash does NOT just include the driver - it can also include ME. Cops enforcing the vehicle code helps keep me safe. Cops patrolling my middle class suburban area helps keep me and my kids safe.
The OP also mentioned that they don’t seem to go around trying to close arrest warrants. The truth is that if they have an unserved warrant, they probably do NOT have a current address for the perp - or the perp is careful to make himself scarce when the cops are in the neighborhood. Police departments will spend time trying to serve old warrants - I rented a house that was the last known address of a wanted man. The cops randomly came by both mid-day, early morning, and late evening to see if he was around. They finally admitted that it appeared that he truly no longer lived in my house and apologized for the repeated intrusions. I told them not to worry, I was happy they were doing their job.
But your headlights, man! What’s the conditions of your headlights?!?
None, since I don’t do it. I obey traffic laws mostly, I haven’t (knock on wood) got a ticket in like a decade. Yeah, when the traffic is going 75 on the 280, I go 75 with them, and I have got a couple of parking tickets. But th
at’s about it.
Please stop. You are killing off all the good dealers in the suburbs.
Oh yeah, I know, first hand, in fact. I was merely answering jtgain’s accusation of tickets as revenue enhancement. Tickets don’t raise revenue, tickets are incentive.
Your assessment, buttonjockey308, is off. You’ve made a nice attempt at having a rock-solid point, but you failed in your attempt because you actually attributed an hour of each person’s time involved in the lifecycle of a ticket to dealing with it instead of looking at actual examples of real towns in which ticket writing was the major source of revenue.
That’s simply not the case.
And if you want further evidence that ticket-writing can be and has been used as a revenue stream, look no further than New Rome, Ohio.
Regardless of your hypothetical that it takes an hour to write a ticket, an hour to review a ticket, an hour to receive payment for a ticket and stamp the check, etc, the facts are different for numerous communities which have been deemed speed traps - because they get a significant and disproportionate amount of income from traffic tickets. New Rome’s police department and village government were so corrupt that the state of Ohio dissolved the village.
It’s not a ‘meme’ when it actually happens.
I liked the first part of his post better anyway. You know? The part you didn’t address.