[quaz]

This is a sore spot for me because myself, wife, father, best friend and a couple of coworkers have all been stopped on the interstate in my area in the last few weeks. There is a lot of construction and they use the fuzzy zones between the beginning and end of construction to trap people and write mass amounts of speeding tickets. It is also well known that the counties are short on budget and have already cut back law enforcement agencies. So to prevent further cutbacks these agencies are trying to become a profit center, but here is the problem.

There are not enough hours in the day for officers to write enough tickets to cover the cost of themselves and the system. The more tickets they write the more it costs the tax payers and if they would just cut back in the departments this wouldn't be a problem. However I get we don't want to lay anyone off, but this strategy is not helping.

So think about the cost of employing one officer and then the process of the ticket. Each officer gets a salary, pension and health care from the county/state. Then they need a car with all the stuff in it. The car needs gas, insurance, maintenance, and probably regular accident repair. In the car are computers, guns, laser and radar guns, as well as many other special tools officers need. Add to this the cost of dispatch, cell phone, wi-fi and probably some other services and the cost keeps going up. Last we have to account for the useless time the taxpayers have to cover when the officer is eating donuts, smoking cigarettes (which they can't do in the car anymore), and generally goofing off. This alone probably costs close to 2-300K per year per officer.

I haven't yet begun to scratch the surface of the drag on the legal system. Once the ticket is written and you go to protest it we have to pay a judge, assistant DA, bailiffs, cashiers, building costs and more civil overhead. One $200 speeding ticket probably costs the taxpayer $2-400 in real costs. I am sick and tired of this abuse of our system and wish there was a way to protest it, but there isn't.

If we had no crime, and everything else was perfect then using cops for the sole purpose of generating revenue could be used. However police officers are meant to keep civil peace, stop crimes and aid in emergencies. Revenue generation is not an intended use of them. I know several cops (friends and family) and all of them are frustrated that they have been instructed to perform this duty. It is a waste of our tax dollars and should stop! We already pay taxes so why do we have to pay more on the road.