Tickets = Revenue

[O.F.Fascist]

HankB, I agree with you.

Here is a link with speed limits and the relevent laws of different states.
http://www.mit.edu/~jfc/laws.html

Here is some interesting info on Texas in particular speed limits.

Texas is one of the few states that doesnt have an "absolute" speed limit.

What that means is that going faster than the speed limit in and of itself is not illegal.

What is illegal is driving at an unreasonable speed, and "unreasonable" is not defined by the law.

http://www.capitol.state.tx.us/statutes/docs/TN/content/htm/tn.007.00.000545.00.htm#545.351.00

§ 545.351. MAXIMUM SPEED REQUIREMENT. (a) An operator
may not drive at a speed greater than is reasonable and prudent
under the circumstances then existing.
(b) An operator:
(1) may not drive a vehicle at a speed greater than is
reasonable and prudent under the conditions and having regard for
actual and potential hazards then existing; and
(2) shall control the speed of the vehicle as
necessary to avoid colliding with another person or vehicle that is
on or entering the highway in compliance with law and the duty of
each person to use due care.
(c) An operator shall, consistent with Subsections (a) and
(b), drive at an appropriate reduced speed if:
(1) the operator is approaching and crossing an
intersection or railroad grade crossing;
(2) the operator is approaching and going around a
curve;
(3) the operator is approaching a hill crest;
(4) the operator is traveling on a narrow or winding
roadway; and
(5) a special hazard exists with regard to traffic,
including pedestrians, or weather or highway conditions.

however they can and obviously do try to use the fact that you were going faster than the speed limit as evidence that your speed was unreasonable.

§ 545.352. PRIMA FACIE SPEED LIMITS. (a) A speed in
excess of the limits established by Subsection (b) or under another
provision of this subchapter is prima facie evidence that the speed
is not reasonable and prudent and that the speed is unlawful.

However it is just one piece of evidence and it and of itself does not make you guilty.

Also unlike other states when reckless driving is defined as being a set ammount of speed over the speed limit, Texas does not define reckless driving at any set speed.

http://www.capitol.state.tx.us/statutes/docs/TN/content/htm/tn.007.00.000545.00.htm#545.401

§ 545.401. RECKLESS DRIVING; OFFENSE. (a) A person
commits an offense if the person drives a vehicle in wilful or
wanton disregard for the safety of persons or property.
(b) An offense under this section is a misdemeanor
punishable by:
(1) a fine not to exceed $200;
(2) confinement in county jail for not more than 30
days; or
(3) both the fine and the confinement.
(c) Notwithstanding Section 542.001, this section applies
to:
(1) a private access way or parking area provided for a
client or patron by a business, other than a private residential
property or the property of a garage or parking lot for which a
charge is made for the storing or parking of motor vehicles; and
(2) a highway or other public place.
(d) Notwithstanding Section 542.004, this section applies
to a person, a team, or motor vehicles and other equipment engaged
in work on a highway surface.

 

[Crosshair]

O.F.Fascist

Kind of like here in ND. Highway speed limit is 75, people do 85 all the time. I've done 105 before. (That's as fast as my car will go. I had to be somewhere in a hurry, yes it was worth it. ) People passed me even at that speed.

 

[DRZinn]

“In response, Coopertown lowered speed limits and began enforcing them creating a big jump in revenue,” said Crosby.

Very telling.

I've seldom seen a speed limit that it wouldn't ne "reasonable and prudent" to exceed by about 10 mph or more. On the freeway, it would be "reasonable and prudent" to do 100 when there isn't too much traffic.

 

[Waitone]

Charlotte got into speed cameras by going through traffic light cameras first. When the debate started on traffic light cameras camera proponents said it was for safety, yada yada yada. Opponents pointed out from actual historical results that by simply increasing the yellow light's on time by a fraction of a second the city could reduce intersection accidents far beyond the projected accident reduction via cameras.

Back and forth they went. Eventually the city caved and admitted the cameras weren't about safety but about revenue. Once the admission was voiced, outlying towns immediately began installing cameras

Safety, schmafety. Its all about filthy lucre.

 

[Deavis]

Not always, but most of the time, speed limits in Texas are set by traffic engineers. Folks with technical knowledge as to safe speed limits. Generally, in cities, most of their time is spent in settings to coordinate traffic lights for smoothest flow. Overall, a good system.

I agree that it is completely reasonable to have someone with technical knowledge setting speed limits but it also helps if they have a little bit of common sense. The highways here in Texas seem to be built so that the guy driving the UPS truck can make a turn at 70mph with ease. What boggles my mind is that most people are driving cars that are technologically light years ahead of the cars from 20 years ago but many roads have the same speed limit as 20 years ago, 55MPH. It is ridiculous that I have to go 55mph on a 10-lane divided highway at 7am on a sunday when I could easily do 100-125MPH with absolutely no risk due to the capabilities of my vehicle which can now include 4 wheel disc brakes with ABS, traction control, superior suspension technology, all-weather tires with more grip than bubble-gum, power steering, light weight chassis, and a myriad of other goodies.

The simple truth is that traffic is self-regulating as most drivers will not exceed their saftey envelope for that particular car and traffic conditions will force the speed limits down to acceptable ranges as necessary. Nobody is going to be rolling 100MPH during rush-hour but on a deserted highway, why not? Those who exceed their limits and cause an accident should be severely punished as should those who obstruct the flow of traffic, ie left-lane vigilantes or idiots who don't know the rules of the road.

Take away someone's drivers license for 6 months and fine them $5000 if they cause an accident and I bet you people will start taking their responsibility behind the wheel more seriously. You want to see people hang up and drive, simply make them pay for that conversation with a big fat check after they are assigned blame. I am willing to bet that if you removed speedlimits on most roads (residential, school, work zone exempted) and severly punished drivers who caused accidents or were reckless, you wouldn't see a change for the worse despite average speeds going up.

 

[rhubarb]

Traffic tickets as revenue!

What'll they think of next? Anti-terror laws used against street hoodlums?

I always thought that if traffic citations had anything to do with public safety, they'd make jail time mandatory. Cop pulls you over for 41 in a 35, cuffs you, locks you up. Bet that'd cut down on the number of you dangerous speeders. Cut down on the amount of tickets written, too. If people faced jail time and the local municipality had to foot the bill for speeders' incarceration, there would be fewer violators and less motivation to arrest them. It's a classic win-win situation.

 

[beerslurpy]

One problem unrelated to revenue is that there is a huge gulf between the skills of drivers and the qualities of cars. This creates problems when you attempt to engage in preemptive regulation of traffic safety (attempting to prevent behavior that you beleive leads to accidents).

Drivers:
Drivers who have done autocross and driven many track days will obviously have a ton more skill than the average soccer mom or old lady with glaucoma. A skilled driver will have much less difficulty in anticipating and avoiding accidents at higher speeds. And have much less difficulty in maintaining or if necessary, recovering control o the car at high speeds.

Cars:
There is a huge difference between the faster and slower cars on the roads. My daily driver is orders of magnitude slower to brake, turn and accelerate than my weekend car. And my daily driver is in excellent condition. Racing brakes, racing tires and good shocks make a car enormously more capable than any normal street car.

The problem:
How do you have one set of rules for a car with 1.3 g of skidpad and a skilled driver and another car with .7g of skidpad and a poor driver? What speed limit do you post in a curve which one can safely take at 4 times the speed of another? How can you make uniform regulations when one car's 110% is another car's 30%? How do you differentiate between different drivers of otherwise identical cars?

The two bad solutions:
The laws unfortunately cant really differentiate between these different levels of competency. The only preemptive solutions are lowest common denominator or to have a system that employs some sort of informed discretion on the part of an expert (but where will you get one?).

The one solution compatible with Liberty:
Or you base the system entirely on the results of people's actions. If people drive beyond their abilities, they will have accidents. If they have accidents, you put them in jail or take away their license. Easy! The founders would have approved!

 

[Flyboy]

What I would support is very simple today, but probably would be a logistics headache. Run a "tape" for about 30 seconds before and after the "violation" and submit that with the citation, from two or more angles. If there's anything going on that would exonerate the violator, it should be there.

Well, yeah, sure, but that sounds like it might allow the defendant "to be confronted with the witnesses against him," and "to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor," and we can't have that, now can we?

 

[SMMAssociates]

Well, yeah, sure, but that sounds like it might allow the defendant "to be confronted with the witnesses against him," and "to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor," and we can't have that, now can we?

Flyboy:

Yeah - that would be way too fair....

Locally, the Girard OH folks decided to put up a speed camera. They're just issuing warnings for a few more days.

Seems nobody bothered to put the "sent payment to:" address on the citations....

I don't have a lot of trouble with the speed cameras other than what I mentioned earlier, but those red light things are potential thievery. (I do have a problem with the camera supplier getting a cut.)

Regards,

 

[LawDog]

Personally, I'm of the opinion that class 'C' misdemeanors, such as traffic tickets, should be dealt with by public flogging.

There are many benefits to this: 1)it would immediately remove 'revenue generation' as the reason for traffic enforcement; 2)the time and effort involved in making an arrest, booking, and the guaranteed court date vs. the time in writing a ticket, would force officers to concentrate on the most flagrant violaters; and 3)people who would think nothing of risking $80 to go 20 MPH over the speed limit might not be as blase about four strokes with a rattan cane.

*sigh*

Unfortunately, the Sheriff and the DA don't agree with me.

How about a "volunteer police department" ....?

It works for us for the fire department. A citizen volunteer can as easily be paged out to a burglary or other disruption as to a fire. It is certainly not any more time critical. It would sure be a hell of a lot faster for someone in my neighborhood to turn out, than for a deputy to take 30-40 minutes to drive out from town (even assuming he/she was free to dispatch at that instant anyway).

The first department I worked for, had the Sheriff and three full-time deputies. One deputy and the Sheriff worked from 8AM to 4PM/Monday through Friday. The second deputy worked from 10PM to 6AM/Thursday through Monday. Deputy number three worked 8AM to 4PM Saturday through Monday and 10PM to 6AM Tuesday and Wednesday.

This left gaping holes in our patroling from 4PM to 10 PM and 6AM to 8AM. We had a 40-man reserve force - unpaid volunteer deputies - who assured us that they'd patrol those slots.

Worked fine for about five days. Then the only un-married full-time officer the department - Your Humble Correspondent - wound up having to work un-paid comp time in those slots.

Every stinking time I racked up 40 or so comp hours and started making noises about either getting paid for my comp time or getting to actually use it, the Sheriff would go have a Come-to-Jesus meeting with the Reserves, and they'd start filling in the slots.

For about a week. And then I'd start taking it in the neck again.

Volunteer fire departments only get called away from job, family and/or home when there's actual excitement.

Patrolling isn't exciting, and people get bored in a hurry. Bored people who aren't getting paid for it start developing excuses for not showing up for patrol.

Maybe volunteer policing works other places, but I wound up eating about 1200 hours of un-paid comp time over a three-year period because of it.

LawDog

 

[bogie]

The St. Louis metro area is a heavy area of "revenue generation." You see, the "county" is composed of over 100 municipalities, as small as the low double-digits of population. And they ALL have police departments. And they all write tickets.

Lots and lots of tickets. There's at least one municipality who has about 100 or so yards of frontage on an interstate. Instant speed trap, running 24/7.

 

[SMMAssociates]

Lawdog:

I don't agree 100%, but I'd sure like to see it as an option.

Like for the guy who passes me on the left while I'm in the left turn lane waiting for an opening....

Multiple DUI's ought to be sent to Syria for road gang duty, too.

And the guys who indulge in what results in "high speed Police chases", well, I think it's a Federal crime to suggest what should happen to them.

I'm an old rent-a-cop. It's been a few decades, but I used to be able to quote the violation numbers for most of the usual suspects. Unfortunately, when I was sworn in, my education consisted of "don't kill anybody" and "don't screw with traffic." I did have to do OPOTA - OH's "Police Academy" later on. "Don't screw with traffic" was also part of that.... Which is to say that I don't give tickets. I get 'em....

So, when some yutz does something dumb/illegal/stupid/immoral, I know what the charge would be. If I could write it.... Naturally, the nearest black & white is across town doing something useful.

(That's generally the case out here - the Township kids are very good.)

OK - quick story.... I was in a bank drive-through one afternoon, dropping off a deposit for the former day job. I heard a Township Lt. ask for a tow truck for my wife's car. I called my office and told 'em that my wife would be calling looking for me, and that I'd go where she was as soon as I cleared the bank. She called, I went.... To the Donut Shop....

(I went to OPOTA with that Lt. If he was cooping, it'd be a shock - the guy used to drive the troops nuts by being all over the place.)

Regards,