# Do police officers or departments really have ticket quotas?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-police-officers-or-departments-really-have-ticket-quotas/1021427
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion
**Created:** [July 28, 2025, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-police-officers-or-departments-really-have-ticket-quotas/1021427 "2025-07-28T13:34:54Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 3
### Author:  [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)
#### Post date: [July 29, 2025, 4:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-police-officers-or-departments-really-have-ticket-quotas/1021427/41 "2025-07-29T04:54:08Z")
By all means, _calling_ it a quota is illegal in a lot of places.
But that isn’t what the OP is asking.
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### Author:  [@Tj54](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tj54)
#### Post date: [July 29, 2025, 6:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-police-officers-or-departments-really-have-ticket-quotas/1021427/42 "2025-07-29T06:19:44Z")
This was long ago, when I was a teenager going to my summer job at about 7 in the morning in a tough south suburb of Chicago. I came to a 4 way stop, saw a city policeman to my right. I waited, he didn’t go, so I did. He pulled me over in the next block. What’s wrong officer? “You didn’t stop at the 4 way back there!” Sir, I saw you, even waited for you to go. “Save it kid. I’ve got 30 tickets to give out today and you’re getting the first one. Let me see your license and insurance”. I was 17 and easy pickings.
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### Author:  [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)
#### Post date: [July 29, 2025, 7:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-police-officers-or-departments-really-have-ticket-quotas/1021427/43 "2025-07-29T07:49:47Z")
> [@Mighty\_Mouse](#):
>
> It’s a cat and mouse game with regulators and insurers. Though it’s getting harder for them to evade scrutiny
Hitchhiking is rare now. It may even be illegal here. And truck drivers aren’t allowed to pick up hitchhikers, or even have anyone else in the cab. Except a relief driver. My friend with the heavy-vehicle license tells me that he can hitch at any roadhouse. All he has to do is sign the log book for driving hours.
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### Author:  [@Crafter\_Man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crafter_Man)
#### Post date: [July 29, 2025, 9:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-police-officers-or-departments-really-have-ticket-quotas/1021427/44 "2025-07-29T09:10:23Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#):
>
> I was staying in a town where the town speed limit was 45 mph. Except there was one street where it was 30 mph. No idea why; the street didn’t have a school or anything like that on it. My guess is that it existed to give the police a place where they could catch “speeders”.
There’s a village near me that has a reputation for ticketing “speeders” passing through it. The trick they use is even more clever: on one side of the street the speed limit is 25 MPH, and on the other side of the street the speed limit is 35 MPH:
[ ](https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51674256906_2da8bc4299_z.jpg)
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### Author:  [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)
#### Post date: [August 1, 2025, 4:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-police-officers-or-departments-really-have-ticket-quotas/1021427/45 "2025-08-01T04:27:15Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#):
>
> By all means, _calling_ it a quota is illegal in a lot of places.
> But that isn’t what the OP is asking.
My department never had a quota beyond don’t do none. The closest anyone came to that was if a supervisor said “If you do at least 10 the bosses will never bother us.” There was no bad consequences for being under 10. There were assigned selective enforcement details that usually came out of complaints of residents. You would have to spend time on those details but no one was forced to write tickets. I’m not saying that’s the way it is everywhere. We never had a strong proactive traffic enforcement culture.
I do frequent cop pages and there is a definite difference between north and south. In the south they tend to look at traffic violations as crimes. In the north especially the northeast it’s looked at as being a lot less serious than that. Those states also allow for arrests on traffic violations. In my state you might get a ticket, for certain violations you might get your car towed, but it’s nearly impossible to get arrested for a motor vehicle violation (other than DWI). When I hear about someone getting arrested for speeding it seems very odd.
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### Author:  [@gnoitall](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gnoitall)
#### Post date: [August 1, 2025, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-police-officers-or-departments-really-have-ticket-quotas/1021427/46 "2025-08-01T14:46:58Z")
It seems weird to me that you had that graphic handy. Is this a fight you’ve been fighting, or are flash infographics a thing for you?
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### Author:  [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)
#### Post date: [August 1, 2025, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-police-officers-or-departments-really-have-ticket-quotas/1021427/47 "2025-08-01T14:57:09Z")
Just seems like a well-known local problem to me.
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### Author:  [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)
#### Post date: [August 1, 2025, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-police-officers-or-departments-really-have-ticket-quotas/1021427/48 "2025-08-01T15:14:59Z")
I think the real question is, where does the fine money go? If it goes directly to the police department, or to some entity closely connected to the police department, then of course there are going to be incentives to give many tickets. What needs to happen is for fines to go to the state, and then for the state, completely independently of fine money, to give funding to local departments based on some measure of need.
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### Author:  [@Mighty\_Mouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mighty_Mouse)
#### Post date: [August 1, 2025, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-police-officers-or-departments-really-have-ticket-quotas/1021427/49 "2025-08-01T17:57:32Z")
In every place when I have lived (five states) there is some sharing agreement between state and municipality (and court systems).
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### Author:  [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)
#### Post date: [August 1, 2025, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-police-officers-or-departments-really-have-ticket-quotas/1021427/50 "2025-08-01T18:19:48Z")
Another place where the number of tickets matter because it “shows” the state that more cops are needed because of all the tickets that are issued. Circular reasoning, but it works.
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### Author:  [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)
#### Post date: [August 2, 2025, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-police-officers-or-departments-really-have-ticket-quotas/1021427/52 "2025-08-02T00:14:29Z")
Actually, I don’t think _anyone_ has seriously suggested that. Nice “excluded middle” argument you’ve got there.
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### Author:  [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)
#### Post date: [August 2, 2025, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-police-officers-or-departments-really-have-ticket-quotas/1021427/54 "2025-08-02T00:37:11Z")
It was North Portland to South Seattle, under 170 miles, and the posted milage on Interstate 5 ranged from 45 to 80 mph, of which only some signs/mphs showed up on my dashboard.
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### Author:  [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)
#### Post date: [August 2, 2025, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-police-officers-or-departments-really-have-ticket-quotas/1021427/56 "2025-08-02T00:46:55Z")
If so, it was a glitch in my car’s system, because it told me via a little picture of a speed limit sign on the dash that the speed limit in a section of the Interstate south of Seattle was 80. Not that it mattered because I never go above 70 anyway.
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### Author:  [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)
#### Post date: [August 2, 2025, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-police-officers-or-departments-really-have-ticket-quotas/1021427/58 "2025-08-02T00:53:11Z")
As sparse as the stop signs are between the two cities, sometimes it is all I’ve got.
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### Author:  [@Asuka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asuka)
#### Post date: [August 3, 2025, 10:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-police-officers-or-departments-really-have-ticket-quotas/1021427/59 "2025-08-03T10:23:36Z")
I don’t understand quotas nowadays because there’s so many shitty drivers it would be incredibly easy to reach them in any city.
Follow any ambulance or firetruck and ticket everybody obstructing or refusing to stop for the emergency vehicle.
Drive down a busy street and look for everybody looking at or messing with their phones while driving.
At a stop light look for the person who hesitates because they’re most likely too busy looking at their phone.
Actually my local police used to do the latter two a lot but then they stopped, they probably were making too much money and getting some heat for it.
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### Author:  [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)
#### Post date: [August 3, 2025, 1:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-police-officers-or-departments-really-have-ticket-quotas/1021427/60 "2025-08-03T13:11:54Z")
> [@Asuka](#):
>
> I don’t understand quotas nowadays because there’s so many shitty drivers it would be incredibly easy to reach them in any city.
Ask most people and their opinion will be that it’s for revenue. In some instances they would be right. What I have encountered is the same with any job. There are always a not insignificant number of people at a job that will do the bare minimum of work they can get away with while still getting paid. It’s a lot easier to be reactive than proactive.
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### Author:  [@doreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doreen)
#### Post date: [August 3, 2025, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-police-officers-or-departments-really-have-ticket-quotas/1021427/61 "2025-08-03T13:29:38Z")
> [@Asuka](#):
>
> I don’t understand quotas nowadays because there’s so many shitty drivers it would be incredibly easy to reach them in any city.
I understand them - because just like any other group of people, there will be police officers who do as little work as they can get away with. What I don’t understand is the people who act as though (but don’t actually say) that there is no way quotas can be met without giving people unjustified tickets. A fairly common number I have seen thrown around for a quota is 20 tickets a month. I had a ten minute drive to work and I probbaly saw at least ten violations a day - 20 tickets a month is roughly one per workday. There’s no way anyone has to write unjustified tickets to meet that sort of quota - and I can’t think of anyone I know personally who complained that they got a ticket because of a “quota” who actually said they didn’t do whatever they got the ticket for.
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### Author:  [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)
#### Post date: [August 3, 2025, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-police-officers-or-departments-really-have-ticket-quotas/1021427/62 "2025-08-03T15:00:47Z")
But if you are doing this for revenue, you are hitting the cars most likely not to show up in court to protest, because you would also have to show up in court. You don’t hit the local civvies or companies, or the major companies that have a habit fighting back, or official cars from governmental agencies. You hit the probable vacationers and people from out-of-state (the people from as far away as possible (according to their plates) etc. Revenue gathering via tickets is not just “lets ticket everyone!”, it is ““ticket as many as possible that are unlikely to contest what is happening”.
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### Author:  [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)
#### Post date: [August 3, 2025, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-police-officers-or-departments-really-have-ticket-quotas/1021427/63 "2025-08-03T15:20:37Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#):
>
> But if you are doing this for revenue, you are hitting the cars most likely not to show up in court to protest, because you would also have to show up in court. You don’t hit the local civvies or companies, or the major companies that have a habit fighting back, or official cars from governmental agencies. You hit the probable vacationers and people from out-of-state (the people from as far away as possible (according to their plates) etc. Revenue gathering via tickets is not just “lets ticket everyone!”, it is ““ticket as many as possible that are unlikely to contest what is happening”.
That sounds like a lot of work for no personal benefit. It’s not like you get a commission off of each ticket.
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### Author:  [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)
#### Post date: [August 3, 2025, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-police-officers-or-departments-really-have-ticket-quotas/1021427/64 "2025-08-03T15:22:11Z")
You get to keep your job, your department gets new toys and you might get a promotion down the line. There are all sorts of things you can get if you’ve got a bit of extra cash on hand: [Military equipment | Police Funding Database | LDF | TMI](https://policefundingdatabase.org/explore-the-database/military-equipment/)
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