Got my first "speed trap" ticket yesterday--you know, where you've got a road with wide shoulders, few houses along it, and inexplicably the speed limit is 30mph--and had some thoughts about what a speed trap tells visitors, whether or not they get a ticket.
1. If you choose to run a business in our town, we will greet your vendors, customers, and employees with tickets unrelated to an actual safety hazard on the road.
2. Our City Council and police are filled with people who have no particular moral qualm about imposing harsh monetary and other penalties on people whose actions have posed no danger to anyone, let alone done anything immoral.
3. We are going to choose to ignore real crime issues--or budget issues--in order to staff our speed trap.
4. We will let you know how important our speed trap is to us by staffing its enforcement, but not other pressing issues with crime.
5. We value our ticket revenue so much that we are willing to actually create a safety hazard by creating an incentive for locals to slow down when every other part of the road says that a safe driving speed is 45mph. (this also goes for cities that reduce the yellow light time to increase tickets for running red lights....part of Colorado that I do not miss at all!)
It would be interesting to track the economic prospects of cities and towns with a lot of speed traps (and short yellow lights) versus those without. I'm guessing those without--those whose police forces actually do seem to care about dealing with crime instead of issuing tickets and harassing otherwise law-abiding motorists--also have a much better record of attracting employers.
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8 comments:
CA is good for some things.
when i was in Ft Smith a few years ago, i got two warning tix in 5 days for driving at speeds much slower than i would have been in the same place, but in CA.
i got a real blatant trap ticket in alabama, back in 98. a total set up, and was charged with doing nearly 75 in a 25 zone. i was only going 55, cause i was new to the region so kept an eye on the speed the whole time.
i know how fast i was going, i just didnt the sign change.
i solved that problem by ignoring the ticket and staying away from alabama ever since.
The short yellow light thing really bugs me.
Now come on--just because they're actually creating a safety hazard and enforcing it by law, you're getting all bent out of shape....
:^)
This just reminds me that there is a difference between "Law," which must be respected if we are to live in a worthwhile society, and "statute," which can be arbitrarily imposed by those in power.
"Statutes are distinguished from common law. The latter owes its binding force to the principles of justice, to long use and the consent of a nation. The former owe their binding force to a positive command or declaration of the supreme power." -Webster's 1828
We are busily forsaking Law in this country and embracing statutes. We will increasingly become a nation of scofflaws as a result. This will have consequences that these government employees and politicians might want to think about.
you say "scofflaws" like it's a bad thing.
I just think it's better to have a society where the rules are such that people follow them. Being a scofflaw who ignores or disparages "statutes" is fine and dandy.
at least i'm in with the good.
although my daughter told me if i leave seattle again with another parking ticket i wont pay she'll refuse to house me next time.
Several years ago the town of Bourbon, MO, just up Highway 44 from my hometown was cleverly able to get it's city limits extend past the interstate. Since then they've got city cops parked on the shoulder of 44 everyday, pulling people over for 72 in a 70, managing to build themselves a new courthouse and buy several new patrol cars in the process. If you ask the residents (or read their letters to the editor of the local paper) the cops aren't doing much in the city itself, but everyone between St. Louis and Springfield hates the town with a vengeance.
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