I’ve noticed at least a 20 fold increase in cars being pulled over by the police over the past months. Before I bitch and grumble in the pit over stealth taxation and how public offices shouldn’t be allowed to keep the fines they levy I’d like to know how widespread it is.
I mean…it is BAD here…when I say 20 fold I am not exaggerating and am probably understating it. How is it where you live?
Yup. Revenue enhancement.
It’s everywhere. We counted more CHP units on our last trip to Vegas than we had seen in the previous 10 trips. All of them had speeders pulled over.
Chicago burbs, haven’t noticed anything.
Where I live (a medium-sized city in the southeast) I’ve noticed a lot of people getting pulled over by unmarked cars. And it’s not like in the past, where the unmarked patrols were sleek shiny SUVs and so kind of stood out. Now it’s beige minivans and sedans that are at lease a couple of years old.
Have noticed a reduction, if anything.
Where do you live? Same question for Mr. Bright.
Central Florida.
Not in DC. The police don’t really pull people over for traffic offenses. The District has a bunch of red light and speeding cameras, but you get those in the mail.
In my area, they’ve reduced the miles the cops can drive in a day (excluding emergency chases, etc.) to save on fuel costs, so they aren’t out as much, but when they are, they pull over EVERYONE. Revenue enhancement, of course… grrr…
Central PA, midsize city, no real change except for the usual spike as the students came back.
I live in rural western Pennsylvania. I was recently pulled over without probable cause. It was 3 am, and I was sober. The cop said I didn’t come to a full stop at a stop sign. I know that I had come to a stop (I actually sat at the sign for a good 20 seconds). In addition, where the cop was parked he was unable to clearly see the intersection in question.
Also, a friend of mine refuses to visit me any longer. The last two times she came to visit she was pulled over. Her offense was driving while black.
I commute about 20 miles each way on I-40 in the Raleigh-Durham area and rarely see anybody pulled over for traffic violations. Of course, at the times I am usually driving the traffic makes speeding somewhat difficult to do in the first place.
I’m in Western New York and I have definitely seen more people getting pulled in the last few months.
My lead foot and I are scared.
I was recently warned by a neighbor (and so take that for what it is worth) that the local cops were going to go on a 30 day ticket writing blitz because they had received federal stimulus money under the guise of highway safety, which was going to allow for beaucoup overtime and revenue enhancement.
Two days later a cab I was in got ticketed for doing 32 in a 25, something I’ve never seen happen.
I’ll go Google the stimulus theory.
Same here. It’s now rare that I don’t see someone pulled over on the Youngmann (I-290 for the out-of-towners). Not coincidentally, several of the suburbs which the Youngmann passes through are in financial trouble.
This certainly seems to be true for Las Vegas.
There’s been a huge increase in St. Louis. On my way home from work one evening, on the other side of the highway, police cars were lined up ever 500 yards or so, just waiting for people on their way into Illinois (I work in Illinois, live in Missouri). When I drove by, there were already four people pulled over; another two or three got pulled over by the time I’d passed. It was surreal.
Tennessee–it’s skyrocketing!
They’re out there in groups of 2 to 3 cars in a bunch.
Pullin’ em over in wholsesale lots.
BTW–avoid Smyrna TN, just outside Nashville. They give out tickets for things you haven’t done.
I was pulled over, around the corner from my house, in a suburban subdivision, for rolling through a stop sign. It was near the end of the month when the cops supposedly have to make their quotas. I was hoping to get off with a warning, but I really pissed him off when I took forever looking for my insurance card…Saw him the next day on a country road, having pulled over another housewife, and the same guy stopped my neighbor for going 37 in a 35 MPH zone. A large increase (in upstate NY) - Ya think?