Traffic tickets up 70% in Nashville

[Mad1]

Well I know this might put people off of having a Marauder meet here, but I had to post this story (http://tennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060124/NEWS03/601240342) from today's newspaper.


The number of tickets issued for moving violations has risen nearly 70% since 2003. In the same amount of time, the number of accidents on Nashville roads has fallen about 4.7%.

The news isn't all positive; the number of people killed in crashes has risen nearly 10% in the past two years. Some police officers continue to decry what they see as an unofficial, and artificial, "quota" system for tickets.

And the fines being levied aren't sitting well with ticketed drivers. Violators paid $4.95 million in fines last year, up more than 80% since 2003.

So to follow our chief's logic ... we'd need the number of tickets to rise another 350% to effect a 25% reduction in accidents. Whoa! I'll be taking a cab, 'cause it will be cheaper than paying the "ticket" tax for sure since I live on one of the favorite "enforcement" corridors. (Of course, we haven't had but one accident on our stretch of road in the last year, so one might question why we need such 'heavy' traffic enforcement here. Oh I forgot ... it's the only through-road in our section of town, so you can't avoid using it.)

My favorite response, from a "man on the street."


Nashville resident Richard Grisham, who was also in traffic court paying a ticket, was more blunt.

"It's nothing but (expletive) robbery," he said.

Oh yeah, and the teamsters are weighing in too.


Two labor unions battling to represent Metro police officers have been trying to garner support by seizing on officers' discontent with Serpas' traffic directive. Officers have complained that they are being forced to stop too many motorists and write too many tickets. And they complain that supervisors are punishing officers who don't record sufficient daily activity.

"Officers get rewarded for stats, and writing tickets is a quick and easy way to generate those stats," said P. Brocklin Parks, executive director of the Fraternal Order of Police.

Metro police officers will cast ballots next month to choose between the FOP and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, and both unions have been critical of the traffic strategy.

Stopping so many motorists, the unions have said, wastes police time that could better be used to address more serious problems.

Of course ... the chief says revenue generation is not his mission, since ticket fees go into Metro's budget, not to the police department directly.

That's a load of crap, which I pointed out a year ago when I noted that "revenue" generated by tickets up to that point had offset the proposed cuts to the PD budget, which the mayor abandoned at the chief's urging. I guess, if the PD's heavy-handed ticketing policy makes them revenue neutral in the eyes of the city's budget, then it must be just a coincidence right?


On the other side, Eric Skrum of the Wisconsin-based National Motorists Association, a group that protests "speed traps," among other traffic enforcement efforts, disputes the notion that writing more tickets can substantially reduce accidents.

"The issuance of traffic tickets is about revenue generation rather than safety," Skrum said. "As far as we can tell, there has never been a correlation between traffic tickets and any sort of increase in safety."

A'men brother!

Jeremy
Mad1

[Hotrauder]

If safety was the primary concern wouldn't enforcing lane discipline and keep right except to pass be enforced with the same zeal as Speeding? The fact that speeding tickets are automatically guilty but instantly pleable to lesser point offenses but same $ fine speaks volumns to me. True safety enforcement would ISTM instantly reduce traffic accidents and deaths. A stance that on the surface seems to be what the LEO's and their unions are saying. I don't think they are against more safety for us and for them on the highways. IMHO Dennis:rolleyes:

[dwasson]

Did y'all vote down a tax increase?

[Rick-n-Miami]

I drove through Nashville 4x times last week. My Valentine1 was going off the charts :rolleyes:

[DEFYANT]

The only way to make a point with most people is to take their money. Many people DO NOT speed because they do not want to give their money to the state.

Some want to risk it. And some get caught and then cry foul. :bigcry:

Ya'know what? Get a http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y193/Defyant/tkim0469.jpg!

Dont speed!

The people make the laws. If you do not like the law, get together and make it known to the representitives in gov't. Or, elect someone who sees it the way you do.

[jimlam56]

I've never been able to get my rental car over 25mph on I40 coming out of the airport to downtown for the last 5 years:D I KNOW that road will be done being built someday...

[dwasson]

Dont speed!

But you still have to give us a sporting chance.

[Mad1]

Did y'all vote down a tax increase?

Funny you should ask. We did whack down a sales tax increase in the last election ... but it was well after all the speeding enforcement stuff started.


I drove through Nashville 4x times last week.

And you didn't stop by for a beer or coffee at least once? For shame.


If you do not like the law, get together and make it known to the representitives in gov't.

I don't have enough cash to buy off a legislator, not that I don't know which ones are for sale.

NOTE: Seven people, including five current or former state lawmakers, were busted as part of an FBI/TBI public corruption sting last year. (See this link: Operation Tennessee Waltz (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Tennessee_Waltz))

[DEFYANT]

NOTE: Seven people, including five current or former state lawmakers, were busted as part of an FBI/TBI public corruption sting last year. (See this link: Operation Tennessee Waltz (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Tennessee_Waltz))

Five current or former state lawmakers? How many does that leave? I bet there is a lot of other lawmakers to pitch your case to, I would start with them.

Problem is, people with clean licenses and average drivers want the speed limit. And so should you. Why? Can you imagine what the road would be like w/o a speed limit? No, not everyone cruising along at 110 or 120.. more like 10 - 20mph. Thats right. Because there would be so many more fatal crashes, the police would have the roads shut down to investigate the crash.

Bottom line: People do not drive to their own limits, they exceed them. When people exceed their limit, they crash. So to be fair, society dictates a (so called) reasonable speed limit.

[Hotrauder]

Five current or former state lawmakers? How many does that leave? I bet there is a lot of other lawmakers to pitch your case to, I would start with them.

Problem is, people with clean licenses and average drivers want the speed limit. And so should you. Why? Can you imagine what the road would be like w/o a speed limit? No, not everyone cruising along at 110 or 120.. more like 10 - 20mph. Thats right. Because there would be so many more fatal crashes, the police would have the roads shut down to investigate the crash.

Bottom line: People do not drive to their own limits, they exceed them. When people exceed their limit, they crash. So to be fair, society dictates a (so called) reasonable speed limit.


Charlie, you are absolutely correct and your points are right on. My problem is not with speed limits or speeding fines. In my opinion the failure to enforce keep right except to pass not only causes more highway deaths, road rage and excessive highway construction cost that speeding. Much of the highway conjestion is from improper lane usage and improper inside lane passing due to the antidestination leaguers parked in the passing lane. Just my .02. I don't think it is about the money with the below the political level LEO's but the pols sure do fight over the spoils and the top brass certainly post their scalps in an effort to increase the size of the enforcement arm. I have had only 2 speeding tickets (luck and awareness) in 50 years and over 2 million miles on the road. I deserved them both. I am not crying in my beer on this but concerned with highway safety for civilians and LEO's and also concerned with the many billions of highway construction dollars wasted because of poor highway useage by the driving public. Many studies have shown that a 2 lane highway more efficiently carries traffic that a 3 lane. Poor lane usage and failure to enforce "right except to pass." Dennis:)

[Mad1]

LOL. I may have to rethink my position on these speeding fines since I just applied today to be the Media Relations Coordinator for Metro PD. It's funny how life works sometimes.

Everybody wish me luck ... it could pay off big time if we have the next marauder meet here in Nashville. (Think police escorts ... we'll caravan through town like when Al Gore was the VeeP.)

Mad1
Jeremy

[dwasson]

LOL. I may have to rethink my position on these speeding fines since I just applied today to be the Media Relations Coordinator for Metro PD. It's funny how life works sometimes.

Everybody wish me luck ... it could pay off big time if we have the next marauder meet here in Nashville. (Think police escorts ... we'll caravan through town like when Al Gore was the VeeP.)

Mad1
Jeremy

Business is business.

[Petrograde]

Problem is, people with clean licenses and average drivers want the speed limit. And so should you. Why? Can you imagine what the road would be like w/o a speed limit? No, not everyone cruising along at 110 or 120.. more like 10 - 20mph. Thats right. Because there would be so many more fatal crashes, the police would have the roads shut down to investigate the crash.

I drove 135 mph everywhere I went on the Autobahn in Germany. I saw very few wrecks in 2 years,.. but the few I did see were fatal.

We couldn't have our own Autobahn here in the States. We (Americans as a whole) do not take driving seriously enough. We're too busy talking on the god damn cell phone.

Germans (from what I saw) take driving deadly serious. Too bad we don't,.. until we do we'll continue to lose tens of thousands of people a year on our highways.

[Hotrauder]

I drove 135 mph everywhere I went on the Autobahn in Germany. I saw very few wrecks in 2 years,.. but the few I did see were fatal.

We couldn't have our own Autobahn here in the States. We (Americans as a whole) do not take driving seriously enough. We're too busy talking on the god damn cell phone.

Germans (from what I saw) take driving deadly serious. Too bad we don't,.. until we do we'll continue to lose tens of thousands of people a year on our highways.

LIGHT BULB TIME...Survival of the fittest. Gear our highway system, auto manufacture and enforcement to highest not the lowest common denominator. Yikes, carnage everywhere till the brain dead and obtuse are weeded out...then nervana. Just a thought...inspired the good old fashioned way...long live the single malt. Dennis

[DEFYANT]

I drove 135 mph everywhere I went on the Autobahn in Germany. I saw very few wrecks in 2 years,.. but the few I did see were fatal.

We couldn't have our own Autobahn here in the States. We (Americans as a whole) do not take driving seriously enough. We're too busy talking on the god damn cell phone.

Germans (from what I saw) take driving deadly serious. Too bad we don't,.. until we do we'll continue to lose tens of thousands of people a year on our highways.

Irony.

The Autobahn was designed to allow cars to travel as those speeds. I forget the exact numbers, but I think the hills, curves and grades do not exceed 7% allowing drivers to see over hills and around turns.

Funny thing is... our highway system was modled after the German Autobahn.

[dwasson]

In much of the world you must go through some serious training to get a drivers license. They try to weed out the bad drivers at the beginning.

In the US we hand out drivers licenses at a whim and weed the bad drivers out later, through points and fatalities. There is a large number of drivers out there who aren't capable or even aware of what they are doing. The speed limits may not make them safer but it might give them a better chance of surviving.

But people who care about driving try to get better at it and tend to pay attention. They want to be in the car. This is not the group that causes most of the accidents.

That said, strict speed enforcement is not the best use of police resources to make the roads safer. If the goal is to make the roads safer the police could enforce lane discipline, tailgating laws, and other things like that. But speed limit violations are easier to quantify and more difficult to fight in court. When the RADAR says 82MPH that is pretty clear.

So, given human nature, is it any wonder why most jurisdictions choose the easy money of speed enforcement, rather than the hard work of true policing?

[DEFYANT]

In much of the world you must go through some serious training to get a drivers license. They try to weed out the bad drivers at the beginning.

In the US we hand out drivers licenses at a whim and weed the bad drivers out later, through points and fatalities. There is a large number of drivers out there who aren't capable or even aware of what they are doing. The speed limits may not make them safer but it might give them a better chance of surviving.

But people who care about driving try to get better at it and tend to pay attention. They want to be in the car. This is not the group that causes most of the accidents.

That said, strict speed enforcement is not the best use of police resources to make the roads safer. If the goal is to make the roads safer the police could enforce lane discipline, tailgating laws, and other things like that. But speed limit violations are easier to quantify and more difficult to fight in court. When the RADAR says 82MPH that is pretty clear.

So, given human nature, is it any wonder why most jurisdictions choose the easy money of speed enforcement, rather than the hard work of true policing?

Do you know that real policing includes traffic law enforcement? Do you know that rapists murderers and robbers drive and usually speed? Some of my best criminal cases began with a seat belt violation or a window tint violation.

Guys, you make it sound as if the cops out there get a kick back everytime a ticket is written. It is just not so. :shake:

[dwasson]

Do you know that real policing includes traffic law enforcement? Do you know that rapists murderers and robbers drive and usually speed? Some of my best criminal cases began with a seat belt violation or a window tint violation.

Guys, you make it sound as if the cops out there get a kick back everytime a ticket is written. It is just not so. :shake:

No doubt. But it is a very real revenue source for some jurisdictions too. And it's not a reach to believe that the revenue is the primary motivator for your superiors.

[DEFYANT]

No doubt. But it is a very real revenue source for some jurisdictions too. And it's not a reach to believe that the revenue is the primary motivator for your superiors.

While I am simply a worker bee, I think it is more about politics.

You see, citizens complain. Angry citizens may not re-elect the boss. That makes the boss angry. That flows down hill to us - the worker bees.

Meeting citizen complaints keeps everybody happy - except the law brakers.

I have never heard cops in the station house delighted about making the state alot of money during one shift.