Let me clarify something: When I said, “lots of little New Romes,” I only meant it in the context of revenue from traffic violations. There are many aspects of the former New Rome that I’ve never seen or heard of anywhere else. That was one scary place.
I’m not sure where you are, but I know a lot of houses in Georgia, Alabama and Florida were in place in those “small towns” before the roads because major throughfares. There are plenty of houses here in Columbus that have little to no front yard because the road has been widened to handle increased traffic. Should those people just pack up and move to save you a few seconds?
I live very near a school. There was a lot of speeding in the school zone - nice wide two lane road - until the cops started enforcing the speed limit. Just because “everyone” is doing it doesn’t make it right - or safe.
I don’t think the majority of people are eductated on what is or isn’t a safe speed to drive. That’s what we pay our civil engineers for isn’t it?
I shouldn’t have to tell you this because you are from Virginia, famous for their traffic fines. It varies greatly from state to state. In my state almost all of each traffic fine goes directly to the state. The town gets something less than 10%. The state also gets all the money from the surcharges which go along with the points. In the town I work in the local government does not make much of a “profit”, not when you consider the salaries of the court workers, paying the judge (a hell of a lot of money for a part time job) prosecutors and public defenders and paying over time for the subpoenaed officers. I’m sure that in smaller towns with less overhead the revenue means something to them. I have felt pressure to write tickets. I have never felt pressure to write them in order to make the town more money.
And here I am wanting MORE speed traps on a certain stretch of roadway under construction that I have to take to work each night.
This road is being widened and has a 55mph limit with signs reading “fines doubled” that
nearly everyone looks at and says "Yeah, right,"as they hurtle through a zone at 70mph+ where the work foremen routinely change which lane is closed on a whim.
Dumbasses have wrecks all the time on that road and the only police presence comes after the damage has been done.
Omaha police, get out there and start making those signs mean something!
Wow. I guess we are just disagreeing on everything today. Perhaps tomorrow will be bettter. 
But, anyways, I understand why residents in a community want a low speed limit. Hell, I would like it if the city passed a law saying that NO TRAFFIC AT ALL may pass by my house. The damn dog barks at everything, and it would be better if all traffic was rerouted.
You see my point. Just because a person would like to have traffic operate at a slower speed in front of his house, doesn’t mean that it should be law.
And I agree that people can be idiots at times, but why do we trust a majority of people to elect our city councils, state legislators, governors, and even the most powerful person in the world, the President (yes, I know, the EC) but when it comes to the speed at which you can operate a motor vehicle, people are far too stupid and need smarter people to tell them what to do?
Exactly - we trust the majority to elect people to governments, to you know, govern? By passing speed limit laws.
Also, you seem to be equating the majority of car drivers with the majority of the people. As others have commented, the opinions of the townsfolk who have to live with traffic on their local road are also part of the social equation. They may well be the majority here, not the drivers who are ignoring the law.
We enact speed limit and other traffic safety laws to protect me from the idiots who think they can safely drive 100mph, but in fact can’t. I frankly don’t care if they commit suicide by speed, but when they take innocents with them it bothers me.
So if the road came after the houses, what do you propose? Somehow I think slowing down every 30 miles for a few blocks as you go through a small town isn’t going to be a hardship for someone. If it’s going to make that much of a difference in time, said person should learn to manage their time better. That is a perfect example of a sad little “me” attitude
No, we live in a republic. Which means that mob rule doesn’t apply, so if 100 speed demons that want to use a road decides that they can zoom right past two houses and disregard the safety of those two residents, they will not be permitted to do so, or at least they ought not.
No. It’s not. Self-government doesn’t mean you get to do what you want as long as there’s no one around to stop you.
You’re making the mistake of isolating one tiny facet of life and superimposing your own theory of government on it. And sure, such a result would work out nicely for you, and perhaps even for many people.
But the point of a representative government is to protect the two from the one hundred, not the other way around.
They sometimes do.** SOMETIMES.** But I will bet than any county in the USA has a butt-load of arrest warrents sitting around for real criminals that they have not yet served, due to staffing shortages. So, I’ll concede there’s maybe a 1% chance that a traffic stop may find a real criminal, but there’s a 100% chance that finding the dude for the arrest warrent will lead to a real criminal.
Yes, traffic laws are “laws”. But except for DUI and similar crimes, they are not “crimes”, they are not part of the Criminal Code. They are Infractions, Code violations. Any City or County has thousands of Codes, which are generally enforced by non-gun carrying, non-sworn “civilians” like meter maids, Code Enforcement Inspectors, Health Inspectors or the like. There is no reason why we need a very expensive Police officer to write a parking ticket or a speeding ticket, especially when that PO could be out arresting and/or preventing Criminal Code violations and even Felonies. Especially when most cities have a shortage of PO’s and they are working double-overtime, which makes them careless and prone to errors in judgement. I don’t want dudes who carry guns being “more prone to errors in judgement”.
Look, I want my PD to pull over drunk drivers, racers or other drivers who pose a “clear and present danger to the public safety”. Yes, please. But not writing Carpool lane tickets or “42mph in a 35 zone” tickets.
Actually, they seem to set up speed traps at places that have unreasonable speed restrictions, or unexplainable speed limit variations. That’s definitely not cool.
I just want to tell you that I agree with your sentiment here. I’ve met cops that have been real dicks, but I’ve also met cops that were great and went out of their way to help me. Everyone always remembers the cop that pissed them off…we tend to forget the ones that gave us a break or helped us out.
So let me say thanks to the cop that:
[ul]Gave me a lift when I ran out of gas on a long stretch of road. It wasn’t in the middle of nowhere and I could have walked to the gas station in an hour or so, but she stopped and gave me a ride there and back, and then followed me to the station to make sure I made it. I appreciate that.
[/ul] [ul]The policeman that in my hometown that helped me unlock my car three times when I kept locking my keys in there. Yeah, he was laughing around the second time I did it, and he probably thought, “What a moron!”, but he was always friendly and cheerful about it. When I’d see him on the street he’d joke about it and ask me how I was doing. Really nice guy.
[/ul] [ul]The Connecticut State Trooper that didn’t give me a ticket when I fell asleep behind the wheel. I almost killed myself, but he was calm and courteous when he showed up. He thought I was drunk when he first got to me, but I was simply fatigued. (I’d been driving for like six hours) He even brought me a cup of coffee.
[/ul] [ul]And a big thanks to the Trooper that could have busted me big time. I tried to pass a semi on a non-passing road and almost had a head on collision with him. I expected to get it, but when I apologized and accepted the fact that he was going to slam me, he gave me a break, figuring that the near death experience had taught me my lesson (it did). That was 20 years ago and I still remember it clearly because I was so fantastically guilty of driving like an idiot that to this day I’m grateful that he gave me a break.
[/ul]
I’d like to say thanks to the Jefferson Parish officer who gave me a ride home when he thought I was going to fall (jump?) off the Dickory overpass one summer day.
You know, I’ve had some great experience with police officers as well.
… I hired a cop to help me keep the peace while moving out of my former wife’s home. He was totally cool and empathetic, and he even helped me carry some furniture. Nice guy.
… Following a snow storm, I was driving too fast coming around a bend and lost it. A town cop was parked in the middle of the road towing someone else out of a snow bank. When I saw him, I couldn’t stop in time, swerved and I too ended up in a snow bank. He finished with the other motorist, pulled up past me, got out, apologized for being where he was, and pulled me out of the snow bank. He never said a word about me going too fast, because he knew I knew. Another excellent example of protecting and serving.
… I heard a very odd screeching noise outside my home a few years back. It almost sounded like a baby crying VERY loudly. I called the local police and the guy was very courteous. He informed that it was a fisher cat and that I should get any pets I have into the house immediately. Once they’re there, I should stay in the house too as these animals will attack humans as well. I thought it was very nice of him to be frank with the public.
There are many more, but these are recent highlights. But I will say this, these experiences were after I was 25. Prior to that, cops were often dicks to me for unknown reasons. I think they (oftentimes correctly) assume that the teenager or adolescent is being a moron and should be treated as such.
Sure, every place is different. I was more or less describing rural areas with which the state governments are necessarily concerned. In more populated areas (like the northeast), a town like New Rome would exist for very long. Clearly you can understand that some rural towns profit directly from transgressions (legitimate or otherwise) from passers-through.
Absolutely. I’m not saying it doesn’t happen. I’m just saying that it is a kneejerk reaction that many people have to say that traffic enforcement is strictly to make the town money. Like I said, a small town with low overhead in their court system probably can make a tidy profit, especially considering their low overall budget. One way around giving most of the money to the state is for the town to make ordinaces which mirror the state statutes. All the money from local ordinances go to the town.
Yet, mysteriously, when the cop wanders into the drug den across the street, he never pops back out with an arrestee in hand! That’s so strange! It’s a BIG FUCKING MYSTERY! I wonder WHAT THE FUCK GOES ON IN THAT HOUSE! I wonder HOW THAT COP MAKES A LIVING!
Probably doing his job, eh?
In the example DudleyGarrett posted, the now defunct town (speed trap) of New Rome kept its police force funded for years through unjustified traffic fines. There was no public safety rationale.
*"New Rome police had systematically taken advantage of the village’s sudden drop (10 MPH change) in posted speed along the busy thoroughfare of West Broad Street to pull over thousands of motorists, raising nearly $400,000 gross annually from speeding tickets, as well as citations for more trivial offenses such as dusty taillights and improperly tinted windows. Nearly all of this money was funneled back into the police force (bolding added), which almost exclusively dealt with traffic violations and so essentially existed to fund itself. The 60-resident village had as many as 14 policemen (all part-time), with the Village Council wanting more. Many local business owners complained that customers were being driven away by the village’s reputation, and there were many unsubstantiated reports of arbitrary and even abusive conduct at the hands of the New Rome police, who even ventured into surrounding jurisdictions to arrest people over unpaid traffic tickets.
The Ohio Department of Transportation eventually decided that New Rome’s lower speed limit was inconsistent with state law guidelines. The New Rome police force itself was suspended by the village in 2003 when its chief resigned, shortly after the village’s mayor’s court was abolished by the state, and so the speed trap came to an end.*
With some exceptions like speed traps and publicity-driven holiday enforcement, I basically agree with the OP.
Preach it.
I’ve always felt police are doing their jobs, and it’s a job that requires a lot of patience and a very thick skin. Too often people are tough on police officers until they are in need of one, but that’s a topic for another time.
I believe that officers are, in fact, somewhat pressured to get a ‘quota’, even though there is no official one. No, forget that, I’m relatively sure of it. I was told so by a police officer. They have an unenviable, and sometimes dangerous, job.
This being said- I will say that the last interaction I had with a police officer was after I slammed my car into his ( :eek: ), and, with his help and understanding of the circumstance, I didn’t even have to plead when it came to court. I was told to remain a ‘safe and courteous’ driver, and was sent on my merry way.