Speeding Ticket: Effective Tool or Revenue Generator?

The BBQ Pit
1

This is a story of the old fashioned speed trap. My local PD set up radar at the top of a hill on some ‘back’ road this morning. Speed limit: 30 mph…general traffic speed 45 - 50 mph. Not an accident prone area, no school zones or children, just good ole Americans trying to get to work on time. It feels like I’ve been had. It’s not going to affect my record as I have the option to ‘buy out’ speeding tickets in my city. That makes it feel even more like a revenue generator. I say PISS OFF!

Thoughts?

2

I say the Pit.

3

From your post, it’s obvious that you knew the speed limit. It was posted. And thus, you were violating the law knowingly.

I know a ton of people like you who go a bit fast - some of them, even farily often. And when they get a ticket, they do not complain, they take it like a man and pay up.

If you have to go 15+ miles per hour over the posted speed limit to get to work on time, I suggest you get your lazy ass out of bed a bit earlier.

In a nutshell: Don’t speed if you don’t want to risk a ticket. And if you do get a ticket when speeding, you don’t have a leg to stand on, nor my sympathy.

Yer pal,
Satan

TIME ELAPSED SINCE I QUIT SMOKING:
One month, two days, 20 hours, 20 minutes and 39 seconds.
1313 cigarettes not smoked, saving $164.24.
Life saved: 4 days, 13 hours, 25 minutes.

4

Yeah, Satan’s right. If you’re going to play the game, you’ve got to be prepared to pay the user-fees every now and again. I just look at the speeding ticket I seem to get every few years, and the resulting effect on my insurance, as just another tax.

But The Pit is here for rants, and ticket-writing troglodytes certainly deserve one.

Speeding tickets are a scam, plain and simple.

My hometown sits in a valley. It’s accessible to the outside (real) world by five different roads/highways. Two of the five are essentially flat, and the speed limit right into town stays at 40 mph. With the other three routes, you’re coming down some pretty steep hills.

Surprise, surprise. On the three hilly routes, all of a sudden, the speed limit is lowered to 25 mph. All of a sudden, cops are now frequenting their new speed traps, hiding the best they can. And on these roads, you basically have to ride your brakes HARD to stay below the speed limit.

Why was this done? No one was killed or hurt on any of these roads as far back as I can remember. No one is careening out of control into town, sending women and children scattering for their lives.

It’s revenue-generation, pure and simple. It’s looking at the standard rate of speed the community has determined en masse that they want to drive at certain locations, negating it and slashing it to an unreasonable standard purely to make money.
It shouldn’t be a newsflash to anybody that the government occasionally takes ridiculous positions that run counter to general public sentiment. Having a bag of marijuana essentially isn’t much different than having a case of beer, but one’s going to get you thrown in jail.

So, in summation, I’m with Duck Hook. Fuck 'em all and the horse they rode in on (at 25 mph).

5

I can’t even count how many times I’ve been stopped for speeding, but I have yet to get a ticket. Once they run my license and see that I’ve never had a ticket, they let me go because they assume it’s my first offense. I love it. (Being blonde and cute and TRULY remorseful probably doesn’t hurt anything either)

6

Revenue generator, without a doubt, and in multiple ways–although any cop will say “I’m just doing my job.”

Speed limits are often set artificially low. That way, by chance or design, a cop can write a ticket just about any time they please. They let most of them go, but they get their share, too.

In one town (Pawley’s Island, SC), the mayor bragged about how much revenue the lowered speed limit (25) had when they changed it a few years ago. (Since then, the mayor and some other “city officals” got into some legal troubles, and are no longer in power.)

In another town (Forest Acres, SC), one person running for a town council spot said that she planned to generate more revenue for the town by having the speed limit lowered on the main drag. She lost. (Forest Acres is an affluent, low-crime area with a large police force that basically whose main job is handing out speeding tickets.)

I would be interested in seeing some statistics on ticketing and revenue. I wonder if it works like mechanics at a log of garages, where they are required to do certain amount of “work.” One mechanic I know said that they were expected to “turn over” twice their pay every week in work.

7

When I was younger, the cops in my town used to like to follow me (Mustang driver). Particularly if it was after dark.

Once, I had one follow me for over 2 miles through the center of town. During that time, I observed two different people turning without signalling; one person driving–at night–with no lights whatsoever; finally, a person changed lanes practically on top of me (without signalling), then stopped and turned off (also without signalling). At this point, the cop turned on his lights. I thought, Finally, someone has gotten his attention. This person doesn’t even belong on the road.

Actually, he was pulling me over. Expired tag. Interestingly, the tag had been purchased, I just had forgotten to put the sticker on. This was easily verifiable. He wrote me a ticket anyway.

Of course, all the other violators we had seen had been driving old, “poor”-looking cars. Maybe there’s no point in pulling over someone who can’t pay the ticket.

Every so often, I get a speeding ticket, and I would be the last to say that it was undeserved. However, I do not drive recklessly. I signal before lane changes, I watch for traffic when merging, and I don’t hang out in the passing lane. In fact, I have never been in a car accident while driving (over 15 years).

If the cops were really looking out for our safety, they’d be handing out tickets for
-Passing on the right
-Failure to signal lane changes
-Tailgating
-Various reckless driving offences (dangerous lane changes, leaving Stop sign without checking traffic, etc.)
After all, these are all ticketable offenses. How often do you see it happen, though? Why do you think so many people act as if there were no rules?

Speeding tickets are a quick and easy way to fund the police department. I don’t object to being ticketed for breaking the law; I object to the hypocrisy of a system that singles out one kind of offender and lets the others go, even if they are more dangerous.

-VM

8

I know your reputation Satan, but I think you jumped a little too quickly. Are you a cop? :wink:

My gripe is not that I got the speeding ticket, but is instead with the circumstances surrounding the ticket. As a general rule, I stay within the legal limits and don’t complain if the infraction is valid. I feel the police should be focusing on problem areas instead of setting up a money making machine on a street with an artificially low speed limit.

Furthermore, I wasn’t late for work, but instead, simply moving along with traffic. I’m not using that is an excuse, but it causes more problems to drive the speed limit than not in this case. I suppose I could petition the city to raise the speed limit on that street…yeah, right!

Previously posted by Satan:

Whether you know it or not, this statement supports my theory. I can’t speak to their attitude of gleefully paying the fine…maybe they have more dollars than sense. One thing’s for sure; they don’t alter their driving habits after receiving the tickets. Therefore, it’s an ineffective law enforcement tool.

Hopefully, I have made my position more clear for you. :slight_smile:

9

You know what is the main cause of almost all traffic accidents, Mario Andretti? Excessive speed, that’s what.

Why there is a thread right now in MPSIMS started by someone who was going too fast, almost DIED, and it took this (and the taunting of a stranger who yelled, “Learn how to drive, asshole” to get him to change his driving habits - speed amongst them.

So revenue-gatherer or not, there are posted speed limits for safety. You feel they’re too low? Well, so do I in some cases. But then I realize that I am a healthy 31-year old male driving a relatively new automibile, and I am sharing the road with 16-year old newbies, senior citizens, and not everyone is driving a car equipped to handle high(er) speeds - namely older cars and those tiny super-compact deals. And lets not forget the huge trucks and the small motorcycles either.

Everyone has to share the road, and I can assure you that a fucking maniac on the roads does not make for safe driving.

If you think that getting cash is the only reason for speed limits, then I suppose that’s what all laws are for, since every arrest can lad to fines and bails.

Yer pal,
Satan

I HAVE BEEN SMOKE-FREE FOR:
One month, three days, 15 hours, 0 minutes and 15 seconds.
1345 cigarettes not smoked, saving $168.13.
Life saved: 4 days, 16 hours, 5 minutes.

10

In Colorado, we have implemented “photo radar” where a van sits by the road, measures the speed of each car, and photographs any car exceeding the speed limit. The photo is then used as evidence to generate an infraction and impose a fine. All well and good; as Satan points out, speeding is a leading cause of accidents (behind, IIRC, driving while intoxicated).

The rub is that this function has been contracted out to a private company who receives a percentage of each fine. In order to keep the service going, people have to continue to exceed the speed limit.

There is an exceedingly dangerous stretch of road near my house, S. Santa Fe Blvd, which generates two or three serious, often fatal, accidents a year. It’s an undivided road (just a single stripe), two lanes in each direction, unlimited access, including people stopping in the left traffic lane of the road for a left turn, with a posted speed limit of 55 MPH. People barrel down this road at 65+ MPH; some go as fast at 75 MPH.

Now, we could park a photo radar van or two on this stretch of road. People would eventually catch on and drive the speed limit (at least), and the road would be safer. The problem is that then the van couldn’t make any money! So what they do is park the van there for a week, collect a bunch of cash, and when people start slowing down, they leave. They then wait for people to speed up, another person to get killed in an accident, and then park the van there again to pick up some more cash.

A policy that which requires people to break a law to provide for its enforcement, or the enactment of a law specifically designed for people to break defies the basic meaning and purpose of law; indeed it undermines the foundations of law and ethics in a society.

11

Satan:

Got a cite for that? Is this accidents that involve excessive speed or are caused by excessive speed?

Related topic:
One thing that’s nice about being in Germany–in between cities there is often no speed limit on the highway. Newbies and old people go around 60 MPH or so. Young impatient people like me may drive 100 MPH or more. With all this excessive speed, you would expect a whole lot of accidents. Haven’t seen too many, though. They take the rule about staying in the right lane, except when passing, pretty seriously–even the truck drivers.

My point: There are a lot of things that are included in safe driving. Attributing problems to excessive speed is a bit of a cop-out. If everyone would obey all the rules of the road (and if they were all enforced), we wouldn’t feel a need for such draconian speed limits.

-VM

12

Speed kills! Of that, I have no doubt. I’ve even heard (sorry - no reference) of really nasty pile-ups on the autobahn, especially in foggy conditions. Speed may not cause the accident, however, it contributes to the death toll.

I’m speaking more about areas which could likely handle a realistically higher speed limit, but are kept low for such ‘under-handed’ purposes. And as you are so well aware, Satan, “money is the root of all evil.”

There is a big difference between 45 and 75-80 mph in a driver’s ability to control the car.

13

“Speed kills,” huh?

I think more often it’s the sudden deceleration.

14

It’s nothing but highway robbery.

If we REALLY wanted to slow people down we would do four things:

  1. Limit engine performance. Prevent any motor vehicle from exceeding 55 or 65 miles an hour. That takes care of interstates and highways.

  2. Design safer roads. Speed humps, road diverters and proper visability keeps speeds low in residential and commercial zones.

  3. Never let ANYONE off with a warning. Hitting someone in the head with a bat can kill, too, but I doubt you’ll get a warning if you do it - even if you’re a buxom blonde.

  4. Monitor repeat offenders and prevent them from ever driving again.

Of course, these solutions generate no money and cost a good deal. That makes them BAD. Ticketing takes those expensive cops away from money-losing enterprises (like catching thieves and killers) and puts them to use ambushing the population and stealing money from them.

15

From a downloadable PDF file provided by the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration:

I’d also suggest looking at the chart on page 6 of this file for some detailed state-by-state information on this.

Other interesting links I have found include:
[ul]
[li]National Survey of Speeding and Other Unsafe Driving Actions[/li][li]Traffic Safety Facts 1997 (Speeding)[/li][li]Beyond the Limits: A Law Enforcement Guide: “an overview of speed, speed as an important component of traffic enforcement, speed public information programs, enforcement technology, and evaluating speed enforcement programs. This manual also contains a discussion of over 20 speed enforcement programs around the country.” (ZIP file)[/li][li]Statement Before The Subcommittee On Surface Transportation Committee On Transportation And Infrastructure[/li][li]Guidelines for Developing a Municipal Speed Enforcement Program: “This document provides step-by-step guidance to both law enforcement and civilian personnel to assist with the development of traffic safety program support committees, the implementation of municipal speed enforcement and other special traffic safety programs.” (See if it mentions “Cash Cow” anywhere in this document.)[/li][li]Model Community Speed Control Program[/li][li]Traffic Safety Facts 1998: Speed[/li][/ul]
Anything else? I would have to say that speed must be a major factor in the causation of traffic accidents for there to be this much information (and I only put a small percentage of them here), don’t you think?

Now, don’t make me research for The Pit, okay? I save that for Great Debates, dammit!!

Yer pal,
Satan

I HAVE BEEN SMOKE-FREE FOR:
One month, three days, 18 hours, 37 minutes and 26 seconds.
1351 cigarettes not smoked, saving $168.88.
Life saved: 4 days, 16 hours, 35 minutes.

16

**

Nope. An engine which maxed out at 65 MPH would also by the nature of the engine have a much slower acceleration speed, and just because they don’t want you sustaining high RMP’s (to speed), they do want you (and you’ll want) to be able to quickly get out of a bad spot. Taking that away would make it even less safe.

**

I do believe that this is being done, and one of the reasons that speed limits are much faster on average across the country.

**

Hmm… So it’s a cash cow that can be dealt with in other ways, but warnings which do not generate income for anyone is bad. Okay… :confused:

**

I do believe that enough moving violations (i.e. repeat offending) will ultimately result in losing ones license to drive.

Okay, so of your items, two are already being done, one would cause more harm than it does good, and the other would make the “problem” (if it is one) even worse.

I’m sorry, but it still seems to me that the only way to try and dissuade people from doing ANYTHING illegal is to hit them in the pocketbook or take away their rights. And unless you suggest jail times for someone with a clean record caught going 40 in a 25, I think the former idea makes a lot more sense.

Yer pal,
Satan

I HAVE BEEN SMOKE-FREE FOR:
One month, three days, 18 hours, 52 minutes and 19 seconds.
1351 cigarettes not smoked, saving $168.93.
Life saved: 4 days, 16 hours, 35 minutes.

17

The Prince of Darkness said:

Maybe, but not necessarily.

Check out the article “Speed Limit Fears: Lying With Science” at this site, from the Oregon Chapter of the National Motorists Association: http://metalab.unc.edu/rdu/lyingwsc.html

From the site:

From another site:

And I only put a small percentage of these here.

How does this jibe with all the stuff Satan posted? The old cliche that “numbers and statistics will confess to anything if you torture them enough” comes to mind.

Police and politicians would certainly have a stake in maintaining the notion of higher speeds as inherently bad. If you raise the speed limit to the speeds at which everyone wants to and does travel (gasp!), you lose your ability to ticket and generate revenue.

Does speed kill? Speed that reaches a reckless level where a person can’t effectively control their vehicle certainly does. But if it doesn’t reach that threshold, it doesn’t, and don’t pretend it does.

I’m always leery of statistics such as speed- and alcohol-related fatalities.

Let’s say I’m driving in my car, and I’ve had two beers and I’m drinking a third illegally as I drive along. A deer jumps out in front of me, I swerve to avoid it, hit a tree and die. The autopsy indicates I have alcohol in my system, and police see and smell the open beer in my car.

I just died in an alcohol-related automobile accident. Forget the fact that the alcohol part had as little to do with my crash as the scrambled eggs I’d had for breakfast that morning.

Same thing with speed. If I’m traveling along I-75 and doing 79 mph – 9 miles over the limit – just like everybody else on the highway, and I crash, that’s going to go down in the books as an auto accident in which speed was a factor. Forget the fact that about 50,000 other vehicles out there were doing just fine driving at that speed.

18

you all know that I hate to pick nits (yeah, right!), but…

Satan, please examine the following two quotes:

**

**
(underlines are mine)

Now, in your 1st post, you came out pretty harsh against Duck Hook, then, when he asked you for a cite, you gave him one that almost supported your assertions, then you tried to blanket the discrepency in a deluge of related citations.

Nice try, pal, but I gotcha. :wink: (Check the sig)

In light of these allegations, the following quote sounds pretty silly:

**

I think Some dArk, sTrANger owes Duck Hook an apology!

19

it was Smartass who asked for the supporting evidence. All apologies should be directed to Smartass.

Satan’s reference:

I did! In my state of Kansas, the numbers were quite small until speeds reached >55. Unfortunately, none of these references define excessive speed or indicate a correlation between fatality and amount of mph above posted limits.

It comes back to Mjollnir’s kind correction which blames sudden deceleration for the cause of death. Even if all driver’s stayed within legal limits, there would be increased deaths at higher speeds due to physics and human physiology.

20

I, for one, appreciate speed limits. Why, you ask? Because I like to drive fast.

Now, I always slow down under less than ideal conditions, or when I’m even in the least bit of traffic. A large portion of my driving, though, is done by myself on deserted Kentucky interstates in broad daylight. The Beretta just doesn’t like to go 65 under these conditions, and if I could speed with impunity I would more than likely drive at entirely unsafe speeds.

I generally believe I should have the right to do this–if I’m stupid enough to kill myself, I should probably be allowed to do so. I admit, though, that my reluctance to speed under these conditions owes less to my personal safety and more to the possibility that John Law is hiding up ahead. It’s totally silly that I’m more concerned about a $100 ticket than my own death, and I hate that I think about it that way, but I do.

So even though the libertarians cringe when I say it, I’m glad that the speed limits are there to protect me from myself. (To my credit, I have received exactly one speeding ticket in nine years of driving, and it was a small one.) I’m also glad they’re there to protect me from the less scrupulous, who don’t mind putting my life in danger as well as their own.

Dr. J