Police Speed Enforcement - Pays For Itself Or Not?

[jyl]

Curious how the economics work out for police issuing speeding tickets.

Suppose there is stretch of road in your city with a big speeding problem - lost of drivers excessively speeding, accidents, deaths. Suppose a traffic officer spends a morning writing speeding tickets there. How much time does that officer then lose sitting in court waiting for the hearings? Does the city end up losing money and police manpower?

I'm distinguishing this from an isolated town where the sheriff sits in a speed trap writing tickets to out of towners who will hardly ever return to contest the citation. That seems like a money machine.

[GH85Carrera]

I am GUESSING the vast majority of people just pay the ticket and move on. I have no personal experience. I have not had a ticket in over 35 years.

[Rick Lee]

The sections of road near my house that get regular patrols have no accidents, but everyone goes at least 20 mph over the limit. It's pure desert and your biggest risk is hitting a coyote. In AZ they will let you skate on the fine and points if you do the driving school, which costs just as much as the fine and the money goes to the state. You can do that every 18 mos. So it's pure revenue enhancement. When I got popped a few years ago, I went to court, cop didn't show and I skated.

In five years in this neighborhood I have never seen an accident near where they run regular speed traps, but everyone always goes 20 mph over. The two accidents I've seen in the neighborhood were one week and about 50' apart, both caused by teens texting and both crashed through backyard walls, one SUV had to be hoisted with a crane out of a pool. But texting and driving is totally legal. Go figure.

[jyl]

The reason I ask is, in Portland there are streets where people routinely speed to a significant degree. Like 50 in a 35 or 35 in a 20 or 40 in a school zone during school hours. Oregon law strictly limits the use of photo radar speed enforcement, basically the location has to be posted with signs warning of photo radar and a sworn officer has to be present at all times, so as a practical matter photo radar isn't used in the city. Sometimes there will be motorcycle officers doing enforcement, but very rarely. For all practical purposes, you can speed as much as you like and get away with it. The state is considering permitting unmanned but posted photo radar enforcement in specific streets designated as high crash zones. The alternative that people say is, why not just flood the streets with police officers writing tickets. I was wondering if the truth is that our police department can't really do that, for the manpower and cost reasons I asked about. Trying to find out if that is true.

[URY914]

The little town of Waldo here in Florida was always #1 on AAA's speed trap list. They kept thier entire town financed by the tickets they wrote.

Well they got caught a few months ago and now they don't have a police force. It came to light that they had a quota for tickets. Now the county sheriff patrols the area.

I used to drive thru there a couple times a week. I'd do the limit but the snowbirds would fly by me and get caught.

Florida town infamous for speed traps disbanding police force - CBS News

[jyl]

Yeah, that's the remote town speed trap that mints money.

I'm talking about police writing speeding tickets in a city, to people who live in that city and are thus more able to contest the ticket.

[rick-l]

it is a problem in Missouri.

JEFFERSON CITY • The Missouri House voted overwhelmingly Wednesday night to pass municipal court reforms that Speaker John Diehl said would curtail cities’ “predatory practices when it comes to raising revenue.”

The sweeping measure would dramatically lower how much of their operating revenue cities in St. Louis County could raise from traffic tickets — to 15 percent from 30 percent.

[rattlsnak]

No matter how many tickets he writes, most of them are going to have the same court date. So one day a month, that officer goes to court instead of out on the patrol.

[Rick Lee]

Originally Posted by rattlsnak

No matter how many tickets he writes, most of them are going to have the same court date. So one day a month, that officer goes to court instead of out on the patrol.

There are plenty of tricks for getting around that.

[GWN7]

The city here implemented a 30kph zone by schools this last year. From 7:30am to 5:30pm it is in force. Sept to end of June. They then stick a photo radar car in these zones. They made $2.5 million in the first 2 months, but it's all about the children.

One of the thief's in charge wants to expand the 30kph to all city streets.

[Rick Lee]

If I were king of the world, all fine revenue would go to crime victims or charity. Then we'd see cops focus on dangerous driving.

[aigel]

Why don't you do the math? 4 tickets an hour at 300 bucks makes 1200/h, about 6k/day. Should pay for a cop, even if they hire one from scratch. It probably does not make money though if you consider overhead, equipment, pension ... I do not buy it if anyone says they can't enforce speed limits because it costs them money. If they have to look that hard for people breaking the speed limit, then it will not need enforcement.

G

[aigel]

Originally Posted by GWN7

The city here implemented a 30kph zone by schools this last year. From 7:30am to 5:30pm it is in force. Sept to end of June. They then stick a photo radar car in these zones. They made $2.5 million in the first 2 months, but it's all about the children.

One of the thief's in charge wants to expand the 30kph to all city streets.

I have mixed feelings on this one, having school aged children. 30kph is still pretty fast ... Often the SUV driving crazy moms are the worst offenders, running late to school, running late to their pilates class or nail appointment. The worst accident my family has been in was in a school zone with a teenager slamming into them texting - doing 45mph .... if that guy would have gotten a couple tickets in front of school before, he would have been slower and my family would have been fine ... just sayin' ...

G

[TimT]

This method is a real money maker Aerial enforcement

[Christien]

Originally Posted by Rick Lee

If I were king of the world, all fine revenue would go to crime victims or charity. Then we'd see cops focus on dangerous driving.

Absolutely, 100%. I've been saying this for years. And the second this is implemented, you'll never again hear me complain about speed traps.

[legion]

In Illinois, money from speeding tickets written by state troopers got placed into the general fund. A few years ago, the legislature leaders quietly asked the state troopers to provide more revenue for the state. They complied with massive "speeding crackdowns". You'd see one trooper on a bridge with laser, and as many as a dozen waiting on a downramp to mete out "justice". I almost got hit by one doing triple digit speeds on a downramp trying to catch a guy doing maybe 10 over.

A few years after that, the legislature cut the state police budget, but still (quietly) asked for even more tickets. There has been a noticeable lack of speed traps on interstates since then. I basically haven't seen a speeding ticket given out on an Interstate since maybe 2011.

Back in Bloomington, the local paper ran an article in 2013 that the local PD had only written about 300 speeding tickets a year for the past several years, down from about 2,000 a month in the late 2000's. The number of reckless and drunk driving tickets had increased during this period. Suddenly, guidelines for promotion (quotas) were reinstated, the PD was writing 2,000 speeding tickets a month again, and the number of drunk/reckless driving tickets decreased.

[Porsche-O-Phile]

Originally Posted by TimT

This method is a real money maker Aerial enforcement

Mostly a holdover from the 70s when it cost a lot less to operate them. I wonder if we'll see a resurgence of this with very cheap drones. I'm guessing there will be a LOT of drone speed enforcement in the not-too-distant future. You probably won't even know they're there - a ticket with a photo will just show up in the mail and you're effed.

[Tobra]

If it did not make money, they would not be doing it.

[Dave 86 930 Fl]

How can they lose money? Taxpayers foot the bill for everything! Courthouses, judges, attorneys, clerks, cop cars, speed trap equipment, airplanes ... No business case here, just revenue ... Want more revenue, just spend more taxpayer $$.

[speeder]

Pretty sure that the CHP still uses planes in rural area of CA like the 101 up north between LA and SF. They look like old crop dusting planes and the only ticket I got from one was because I made that mistake. I've seen them flying as recently as this year.